From No Ideas to Too Many Ideas

Back when I was an unpublished writer, I struggled to come up with ideas. I wrote a sci-fi novel and put it aside, then had a spark of an idea that led to my first erotic romance novel, Autumn Fire. After that sci-fi novel and Autumn Fire, I felt I was out of ideas.

Eventually, I came up with an idea that led to my free short story, Go Deep, and another idea that led to my second erotic romance novel, Silent Hearts. But once those were written and published, I was fresh out of ideas again.

Some time after that, I’m not exactly sure when, the ideas started to flow. But in order for them to flow, I needed a change in my mindset. Up to that point, I’d been thinking of writing as more of an art, something that requires creative vision, intricate plotting, fully realized characters, and a gripping narrative. And, back then, as a relatively inexperienced author, I struggled to write well. (Autumn Fire and Silent Hearts are in desperate need of a rewrite once my contract with my publisher expires.)

But after having written a few things and slowly changing my perspective, the ideas began to flow easier. While writing is and always will be an art, I began to think of it more as a business. In a business, you can’t sit around and wait for ideas to come to you — so I forced myself to become much more proactive in thinking up story ideas. Plus, with having more writing under my belt (and with extensive editing), the process of writing became easier.

That presented me with a new problem — I had far too many ideas, and a lot of them didn’t fit under the “brand” I’d established for Cameron D. James. Under this pen name, I tend to do more narrative-focussed erotica with a touch of romance, whereas some of my story ideas were of the “wham-bam-thank-you-sir” variety with no romance and minimal narrative. Plus, as a gay man, I had this absolutely bizarre curiosity to write straight erotica, which obviously wouldn’t fit under this pen name.

So that led to the creation of a new pen name, one that focussed on straight erotica short stories, but also including some gay erotica short stories (but written from a more straight point of view than what I do with Cameron). After a few months, I was left with a problem — I had some story ideas that didn’t fit Cameron’s brand, nor did they fit the brand I established for the new pen name… so I created a third pen name. This new pen name was explicitly gay and explicitly taboo — it used the same short story formula of my second pen name, but the stories were far dirtier than anything I’d written before and the writing was unapologetically gay.

At this time last year, I had, I think, ten stories published (some were short novels and others were short stories), and that had taken about two years to complete. Now, one year later, I’m sitting at about fifty titles.

Over the past several years, prior to 2015, I’d written maybe 100,000 words per year. It’s a decent output.  In 2015, with the huge bump in productivity, I wrote just over 367,000 words. (About 111,000 of that was my sci-fi novel that I had written years ago — I rewrote it in 2015.  So that means about 256,000 words were smut, and most of that happened in the latter half of 2015.)

Now that 2016 has come around, I have a new problem, although I hesitate to actually label it as a “problem.” I literally have too many ideas floating around in my head. For my Cameron D. James pen name, I have the next three short novels planned out, plus ideas for half a dozen short stories. For my second pen name, the one that does some straight stuff, I have the next ten short stories lined up and have plans for about thirty more. And for my third pen name, the unapologetically gay one, I have maybe the next fifteen planned out.  Oh, and with my sci-fi novel that I’m working on — if I sell it or self-publish it, then I have the next four sequels loosely sketched out… and I’ve got a couple James Rollins-style thrillers rolling around in the back of my head.

I literally have too much going on in my cranium. My writing schedule lately has been about a week and a half on pen name #2 (which is how long it takes me to write a short story lately), a week and a half on pen name #3 (to write another story), and then a week or two on my Cameron D. James pen name. I’m presently working on a short novel and am slowly making my way through it.

My writing productivity used to be much higher. I think I’ve burned out a little bit, as in the fall and winter I was averaging about a story and a half every week, so I’ve slowed down quite a bit. Also, as mentioned several weeks back here on OGAG, I’m in the process of starting up an erotica and erotic romance publishing company — and the amount of set-up and work that goes into this thing before we even open ourselves up to submissions has been overwhelming at times. (It’s part of a larger book services company I’ve started with a friend, so there are a number of other aspects to the business to set up, which is part of the problem.) When-slash-if the business takes off such that I can quit my day job, I expect my writing productivity to spike again.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be a writer with this amount of productivity and suffering from an overwhelming number of ideas. Actually, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be writing about people having sex. I can thank being burned out for that — I was in the thick of working on my masters degree and editing my sci-fi novel and I needed a break or I was going to drive myself crazy… so I wrote about sex. And writing about sex, especially with this output I’ve got going, has made me a far stronger writer than I ever thought I could be. This path into erotica writing was the best choice I ever made.

I always thought I’d be one of those authors that has a sci-fi trilogy and then disappears because he has nothing else to write. I thought I’d have my magnum opus and that would be it. I was so wrong.



Cameron D. James is a writer of gay erotica and M/M erotic romance; his latest release is Seduced by My Best Friend’s Dad (co-written with Sandra Claire). He lives in Canada, is always crushing on Starbucks baristas, and has two rescue cats. To learn more about Cameron, visit http://www.camerondjames.com.

Five Ways to Murder Writer's Block

By Anne Rainey

There isn’t a writer out there who can truly claim that they’ve never suffer from the dreaded writer’s block. We all have moments where the words just won’t come. The stress in our life, the deadline that’s looming, winter blues. Whatever the reason, we freeze up when we look at that blank document. Terror fills us. Suddenly, horrible thoughts start to bombard our bodies and minds. I’m a hack. I should hang up my pen. I can’t write my way out of a paper bag.

I recently suffered from this and I know I’ll suffer again sometime in the future. It’s the life of a writer. We truly are a bunch of sadomasochists, torturing ourselves over and over. The alternative is to, well, not write. I don’t’ know about you, but that’s no alternative. So, I’ve come up with some tips to drag myself out of that rut. No, these aren’t foolproof and there isn’t a guarantee on the box. But, I have found them to be effective from time to time.

1. An hour a day. If you work a full time job and the only time you have to write is at lunch or when the kids go to bed, then this is harder for you. Still, make yourself sit down and write. If the WIP isn’t working out—and it probably isn’t since we’re talking about writer’s block, lol—then switch to another project. Browse your mind and work up a new idea for a future book. Churn out some poetry. Write in your journal. Whatever, the key is to keep the creative juices flowing. 500 words or so, set a minimum for yourself. For some, that’s all it takes to break through that wall and get that WIP completed.

2. Read a good book. I do this all the time and I swear it helps keep me motivated. Whenever I’m feeling tied in knots, my mind is just a blank slate and there’s no chalk to be found, I pick up a book by one of my favorite authors and step away from the computer. I give myself over to their world for a little while. Even if it’s just for a few hours it refreshes me and I feel like I can dive into the annoying WIP again.

3. Exercise. When I’m on the treadmill or elliptical my mind tends to stray to the story I’m currently working on. There’s something about working up a sweat that helps clear my mind. It doesn’t always work, but quite often I’ll find myself mentally working on that next scene, the one that wouldn’t come before. Plus, you’ve burned off some of that damn chocolate. LOL

4. Grab a buddy. The other day I was sitting at the computer and trying to think of how I wanted the scene to go in the story I’m currently in the middle of writing. The problem? I kept waffling back and forth between two ideas. I wasn’t sure which to go with, and it was frustrating me because I NEED THIS STORY DONE YESTERDAY! Then a writer friend sent me a few chapters of the story he’s working on, seeking my opinion, and ta-da! Instant clarity! I don’t know why this works exactly. The competition maybe? Or is it simply that connection? Writers collaborating, chatting over ideas and getting the wheels turning. It’s sort of like exercising with a friend, I think. While you might slack off through the hard part if you were alone, having that friend there makes you want to ‘keep up’ as it were.

5. Take a walk down memory lane. One of the things that happens whenever I get blocked is I start to think really negative things about my own work. I start wondering why I ever got published to start with. Who do I think I am? Me, a writer? Yeah right! To keep those horrible thoughts from destroying my muse entirely, I go to my ‘good feedback’ folder. This is where I keep all the acceptance letters, good reviews, positive reader feedback, etc. I carefully sift through those various items and build my self-esteem back up, one small brick at a time. Soon, the wall is sturdy again and I can open that document and make another attempt at creating.

So, what’s your MO for murdering writer’s block? Do you have something specific that works for you? A method that helps keep you motivated? Tell the rest of us! Please!

Also, if you leave me a comment you’re entered to win a copy of my new ebook, Reckless Exposure, a m/f/m erotic romance.

Where in time is Trey? This month, the time-strider finds himself in contemporary Manhattan. His targets are fashion photographer Rand Miller and model Lucy Flemming.

Innocent, lovely, and trusting, Lucy gives herself to Rand in every way possible. She is more than his model. She is his muse.

But will Rand be more than her lover? Or will the secrets he left buried in his past keep him from loving Lucy as she deserves to be loved?

When Rand realizes Lucy must move out of not only his apartment but also his life, he decides to give her the going away party of a lifetime. The list of party goodies includes massage oil, margaritas, and their mysterious neighbor Trey.

But Trey has a mission to fulfill. This cannot be Lucy and Rand's last night together. Trey must turn this ending into a new beginning. For all of them.

Buy link: http://www.eredsage.com/product.php?productid=145

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Anne Rainey grew up in a small town in central Ohio the only girl with three rowdy, older brothers. When she wasn’t playing tackle football with them she could be found tucked away in her mother’s book room getting lost in mysterious worlds created by authors such as Martha Grimes and Andrew M. Greeley. She’s had a variety of odd jobs including Chiropractic Assistant, Frame Stylist, Restaurant Hostess, and Nail Technician. Anne now lives with her fabulous husband, two gorgeous teenage daughters, two ornery dogs and three snooty cats. When she’s not dressing, feeding, cleaning or spending time with them, she can be found at the computer writing stories hot enough to make your toes curl! Visit her at: www.annerainey.com

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The Angle of Attack

by Helen E. H. Madden

Okay, picture this. It's Thursday night, last night in fact, 8:30PM and I'm sitting at my desk with a document open on the screen. The kids are in bed, and by all rights I should be too since I got up at 5AM, but I can't go to sleep because this week's story isn't finished. Normally, I would have gotten my week's writing done by Wednesday morning, Thursday AM at the latest. But not this week. Even though I'm a pro at churning out the tales, events have conspired this week to put me behind schedule. I've been sick. I've had insomnia that's left me half-dead during the hours I would normally be writing. I've had doctor's appointments that ate up half my work hours. One of my kids was sick, thus eating up the other half of my work hours.

Oh, and I've had writer's block. Joy.

Writer's block doesn't happen to me often, but when it does, it always strikes at the worst possible time. Writer's block likes to sneak up on me when I'm pressed for time or not feeling well, when I've got too many things to do and not enough time to do them in. Usually, this happens in the summer when both kids are home and spending all my time with them trumps sitting at the computer typing out stories. But this past October has been pretty bad with me being sick in bed twice and my youngest spending a week home with strep. Naturally, I cannot write under such circumstances.

Just as naturally, I refuse to concede I cannot write under such circumstances.

If you want to cure writer's block, commit yourself to a deadline. I mean really, truly commit yourself. And not to a deadline you set, but to a deadline someone else set, a deadline you promised you would meet no matter what. In my case, my deadline is set by my podcast, Heat Flash Erotica. I have to write a story a week for this show or I'll be sunk. I've got an internet radio station, www.RadioDentata, waiting for me to hand them the latest episode for Thursday evening. Then that same story drops into my podcast feed first thing Friday morning, when several hundred listeners are waiting to download it. You see, I made these folks a promise to deliver the goods every week, and I have to follow through or my name is Mud.

And honey, my name is never, ever Mud.

Here's how my lousy week with writer's block went. On Monday, I sat down at my desk like I always do, opened up my writing notebook, and looked at the ideas I had written down for this week's story. They all stunk. Oh, I had so half-assed scribbles about someone attending their own funeral, but no specific idea of where to go with it. So I spent my writing time that morning scratching some more in my notebook, trying to see where that idea would go. It went nowhere, of course.

On Tuesday morning, I had to finish up some production stuff on the latest episode of the podcast. I had meant to do this last Sunday, but I wasn't feeling well then and I had promised to make Halloween costumes for the kids that weekend, and well, you know how it goes. So there I was on Tuesday morning, editing audio and uploading MP3s to Radio Dentata and my podcast feed, thinking, "It's okay, I've still got a couple of days to write this story. And I don't really have a good idea yet. I'll work that out later today." Only I didn't work out my story idea later that day because I had to go to the doctor's office, and then I had to run errands and then I had to get to work on this new website I'm designing, and well... The story continued to go nowhere.

On Wednesday morning, I got up, determined to write. I didn't feel good, and I wondered if I had caught the strep throat my youngest had had the week before. I managed to stay up long enough to write 800 words of a story before crawling back into bed. I got another hour of sleep, then got up, saw my oldest off to school and, oh wait! Wednesday is play date day, the day my youngest stays home with me. (Wasn't she just home with me all last week when she had strep throat?) So after making the beds and folding the laundry, I take off with my daughter and we spend all day at Chick-Fil-A and then I come home and there's still that website to design and I haven't answered e-mail in two days and my god, look at how much e-mail there is sitting in my inbox, I've got to sort through that mess now and you know, I just realized that 800 words I wrote this morning is the wrong damn story! I hate when that happens. It's a perfectly good story, but it's going to be about 10000 words long, and I can't get 10000 words written by my Thursday deadline, not to mention which stories for the Heat Flash podcast are supposed to be short, meaning 3000 words or less. That means I'm going to have to start all over again tomorrow morning...

And so my story continued to go nowhere.

Thursday morning, I had to drag my sorry ass out of bed. I still didn't feel well, but I had to write or else I was screwed. So I crawled my way up to the office, sat down at my computer, opened up the story, trashed just about all of it, and started all over again. The new story was better, and I got another 800 words written to replace what I'd tossed earlier that morning, but it still wasn't quite right. What the hell was wrong with it? What was wrong with me? I knew there was a story in there somewhere, something about a man with too many wives who dies and suddenly has to make amends for not telling these women he'd been married to more than one of them at a time. It was there! I could feel it, but there was a wall around it, a big thick cinder block wall between me and my story, and I didn't like that one damned bit, no siree Bob.

Thus yesterday I had reached the point where the rubber meets the road. I had a story I couldn't get at. I had a writer's block I couldn't see around. I had a deadline coming up too damn fast. My weekly stories have to be written by Thursday night, because I'm supposed to spend Friday and Saturday morning recording and editing, and then get everything posted by Sunday. Now I'm no fool. I write my stories a month in advance so I wasn't in too dire straights if I busted this week's deadline, but I've been writing a story a week for over two years now, and I was damned if I was going to ruin my good record now!

So Thursday evening, after the Hubster came home and took the kids off my hands, I climbed back up to my office and sat down at my computer and rolled up my sleeves. "This is it, you son of a bitch," I said to the story on my screen. "It's me versus you. One of us is going down tonight, and it ain't gonna be me!" And then I started writing all over again from the beginning.

Writer's block is like that old children's song about tramping through the wood until you reach an obstacle like a river or a mountain or a wall. You can't go around it, you can't go over it, you can't go under it, you gotta go through it. And that's what I did. I sat down with my story and attacked it from every angle. I slapped my main character around until he told me a few things I needed to know. I killed off some of the secondary characters, sending them to that great secondary character graveyard in the sky. I forced another character to become someone entirely new, and then I tortured and twisted the plot line until suddenly I had an idea that made sense. Well, it made sense to me anyway, and that was all I needed. Then I sat down and typed, from start to finish, and occasionally I jumped around a bit, fixing this line here and that line there as the story slowly began to cooperate and come out from behind that damned wall. It took me two hours to write 3000 words. And suddenly my story was done.

This is how it works with writer's block and me. If a story doesn't work one way, I come at it another way. I switch up the angle of attack, assaulting the problem from every direction. It can be difficult, especially if I don't know exactly what the problem with the story is. But it's not impossible to solve. I just have to keep pounding away at it, fighting with the damn thing until it cries "Uncle" and gives me what I want.

It ain't pretty and it ain't nice, but I tell you what, it gets the job done.

The dreaded...dum dum dum... Writer's Block!

by Jude Mason

I had an almost uncontrollable urge to simply whine for a second about not knowing what to write and leaving the rest of this blank. You may wish that's what I did.

Years ago, I had bouts of writer's block, where I simply sat in front of a blank page, or even a page half-filled with writing, and proclaimed I couldn't think of a thing to say. I can't honestly say if I allowed myself the pleasure of 'time off' or if this was really an affliction that I felt I needed to get through in order to write my next bit. I suppose it really doesn't matter. It happened, and it's history.

When I began writing for a webzine called, Darker Pleasures, both the genre and the pace of writing needed was daunting. The webmaster/owner had very specific requirements, which proved to be an enormous chance to learn and stretch my imagination. Every month, and I do mean every single month come hell or high water, the site put up new content. That meant the writers had to produce consistently. The pay was good, the photos we were given to work with were excellent quality and the man we worked for was helpful in the extreme. But, putting out a minimum of 10K a month, sometimes more, on the same topic, month after month, wasn't always easy. I often managed to do much more than 10K. A photo story paid more but was expected to be longer. There were times when the webmaster needed an extra story, an author couldn't meet a deadline or perhaps had some other deadline to meet, and I filled in.

I learned then that a writer's block really wasn't a good idea.

Yes, I have had times when a story didn't work. I've had characters argue with me, others simply refuse to play nice. There's always a way to get the story moving though, if you need it to. Change the characters around. Move them, add someone else, do something to shake the story up and you'll get movement. LOL

When I left Darker Pleasures, I'd learned that a deadline was a very good thing to have. It gave me strict guidelines I follow. I'm one of those people who just doesn't miss deadlines. If I say I'll have something done by next Tuesday at 9 AM, it'll be there.

Have there been times when a story doesn't get finished? You betcha! I have several I'd like to complete, sitting on my hard drive right now. When I have time, I take them out and look at them, but I have no idea if they'll ever get done. I hope so. Possibly if I see a call for submissions where one might fit, if it was done, that'd egg me on enough.

But, blocked? Me? Nope, I refuse to allow it to happen.

Oh, I could go into a time when one of my characters stopped me cold. I suppose that might be refered to as a block. The man was a dominate. He'd just said to his submissive wife, something like, "Get in the car." then he'd taken a few steps towards the door, reached out to open it and BLAM! That's where I stopped. The man refused to open the door.

WTF!

It took me several days to figure out what the problem was. The character would no way have opened the door for his wife, not at that moment. As soon as I realized it, the words came.

If that's a blog, I'll gladly have them. Hopefully, I'll realize what the problem is faster as time goes on though. LOL

An interesting topic. Can't wait to see what everyone else says on the topic and I'd love to hear what you all think of writer's block.

Oh, look, a kitty!

By Jenna Byrnes

Writer's block doesn't 'hit me' so much as I allow myself to succumb to it. With my schedule, I have a limited amount of writing time set aside each day. When I sit down at the computer, it usually goes something like this:

1) Check three email accounts. Two are not very active, personal accounts. The third one is the biggie, where I get all my editor/publisher/important stuff. That gets attention first.

2) In another folder of my busy email account, the loop messages and digests from over 50 Yahoo groups (that's way down from the past!) sit waiting for me. I scan those, answering the important ones and deleting the stuff I can't take time for. Depending on how much important stuff there is, and the level of my patience for rating what's important and what's not, steps one and two could take from 15 minutes to an hour.

3) Open the file to my current work in progress. Reread the segment I wrote previously. Suddenly remember that I meant to look up online the names of some baseball players in the mid-nineties for current WIP. Surfing for those take another 15 minutes.

4) Names copied and pasted, I return to WIP and begin to write. An hour of my allotted two hours is already shot, but I'm ready to dig in. I realize I've used the word 'looked' too many times and go online to the Thesaurus to come up with something different. Spotted. Excellent. Back to work.


5) I see Jude come online via Instant Messenger. I should stop and talk with her a minute about some important edits/proofing/gossiping we need to do. Thirty minutes later she shoos me away, saying she needs to get to work. I'd like to, but my time allotment is up! The real world calls, and I have to move on to other things.

Okay, this isn't so much about writer's block as it is procrastination, but it's something I deal with every day. Finding a balance between life, writing, promoting and the business end is tricky, but lots of people do it and I usually do, too. Some weeks are tougher than others.

True writer's block usually hits me when something serious is going on in my real life. It's hard to flip a switch and put it out of my mind. I can usually do busy work, though, and try to use that time to catch up on small stuff, website work, promotions, Spider Solitaire, etc. I've even skipped over sex scenes and written other parts of a story when my mind wasn't truly into the act. Works for me.

Lisabet is correct that if you want to be a writer, you have to just write. I'm fairly prolific, so I guess I do a decent job of it. But there are days when I think I'm all set to write, and I end up spending an hour putting widgets on my blog. I suppose it happens to the best of us.

I've started logging words written on a daily calendar, so I can see if I'm making progress or not. Last week I wrote 7,500 words. And found the most amazing Jack-O-Lantern for my website header! http://www.jennabyrnes.com/mainpage.htm *grin* Balance in all things, I guess.

Once Around the Block

By Lisabet Sarai



Writer's block. It's a luxury that I can't afford. As I mentioned a few weeks ago when we were discussing writing habits, I normally set aside one day a week for writing. That's all I can manage, most weeks, and I have to spend that day productively if I want to achieve my goals--whether I feel like writing or not. The rest of my time is spoken for. If I don't write on the allocated day, I don't write. Enough said.

That doesn't mean that I always feel inspired. Sometimes the process of getting the words down is downright painful. But I do it anyway. I always have an ongoing project and I usually have a deadline. So I will sit down, open the file and bang away at the keyboard, even if what I'm creating seems to be total oushikusu (thanks, Garce!)

When the words aren't flowing, I try to relax my standards. I will force myself to leave a sentence or a paragraph that I know needs work and move on. I can return later, when the muse is in a more generous mood. I also try to turn off my inner critic. Yes, I know I used that same phrase a few pages ago, but let's just accept it for now. The more I obsess about how rotten my stuff is, the more difficult it is to fill the pages.

Actually, I think that "writer's block" is a vicious cycle. Our identities are so entwined with our writing that being blocked is terrifying. When we get stuck, we start to feel worthless. We question our talent and our commitment. Guilt and fear smother any hints of creativity. Writing becomes even more impossible. We wind ourselves up into an unproductive knot of negative emotions.

The key to unraveling this knot, at least for me, is to simply write, without thought or judgment or self-pressure. The days when it's the hardest, I will try to forget my deadline. I'll be happy if I can produce fifteen hundred words, instead of my target three thousand. At the end of the day, I will feel a sense of accomplishment, even if I know that the work isn't my best.

When I sold Raw Silk the first time, I was a total novice as far as contracts and the publishing world was concerned. The contract specified 85K words. I sent Black Lace a manuscript that was only 77K. I didn't realize that it mattered. I received a stern email from the editor indicating that they needed another eight thousand words within a few days or I'd be in violation of my contract.

I had a terrible cold. My head was pounding, my sinuses were clogged and I was probably running a fever. I wrote two new chapters in the course of a weekend, because I didn't have any choice. Reading them now, I think that they're among the best parts of the book.

I'm stubborn. Just ask my husband. And if I start something, then damn it, I'm going to finish it! There's a story from my childhood that says it all. When I was six or seven, my parents joined the YMCA so that my siblings and I could get the benefit of swimming lessons and other sports. Somehow I happened to be entered in a swimming race. I was never much of an athlete, but I did what I could.

The race was a half-dozen laps of the pool. My competitors finished while I was on my third lap. Nevertheless, I doggedly continued to paddle back and forth in order to complete the course. I vaguely remember that when I pulled my chubby little body out of the pool, there was a scattering of applause.

Inspiration is a wonderful thing. I love the buzz I feel when the words come easily, flowing from my imagination onto the page with scarcely any conscious intervention. Alas, that experience is relatively rare. (That's what makes it so amazing, perhaps.)

When inspiration fails, I fall back on perseverance. I decided years ago that I am going to take this author thing seriously. The only way to be a writer is to write. You can't wait for the right time, the right place, the right idea. And you can't allow fear to freeze your voice.

My Muse

My muse is a man. He never tells me what I need to know until after the fact. And he’s annoying. And he likes to vacation in Europe while I’m in the middle of writing a book. He’s fond of whispering sweet nothings in my ear while I’m drifting off to sleep or giving me the key turning point in my story while I’m in the shower. I’d fire him, but somehow, he gets the job done.

He likes water. He talks while I swim or I’m in the whirlpool. He speaks in the rain and have I mentioned the shower? If I’m really, really stuck on a story, you might find me heading for a long, hot shower in the middle of the afternoon.

He adores music. I listen and he send movies through my head. We like to drive and plot. I’ve learned to take notes with one hand while I guide the car through traffic with the other. I’m good at writing without looking at the paper.

Music. I write to it. The muse has picked a soundtrack for every book and it’s part of my manuscript prep work. There are some songs that are basic to every book I write. I have various versions of Hallelujah that make it onto every soundtrack (think Rufus Wainwright’s version in Shrek). This Year’s Love by David Gray is essential. Lullaby by the Dixie Chicks. In My Heaven the Bo Bice version. Breath and Diary of Jane by Breaking Benjamin. Music invokes mood. I carefully choose each song to match the emotion of what I’m writing. The muse likes that. It’s his crutch.

But sometimes I take that crutch away. When the muse refuses to speak, I refuse to let him have music or sound. You might be amazed by how quickly answers come after five minutes driving in a totally silent car.

I’m not insane. I don’t really think there is some guy who follows me around whispering into my ear—wouldn’t that be nice? And annoying. But there are ways to trick the brain. I know my brain’s triggers. As a writer, I think that’s one of the most important things to learn. What and where are the circumstances that allow your creativity to flow? Is there certain music? Are there certain pictures to look at? A particular scent? A particular place? A particular format (paper versus computer)? Do you need to be alone or can you write with people around?

I’ve long said that I don’t believe in writer’s block. I believe in writer’s procrastination. I believe in writer’s distraction. I believe as a writer, you have to learn how to get around that. We must outwit the muse and tell him we’re in charge…

Take away his music until he speaks.