Writer's Block

Writer's Block

How To Fight It
By
Alexander Gordon Jahans

So, what are my qualifications to talk about this?

Well I’ve been writing on and off for myself since 2009, producing short stories, scripts and novel length pieces of prose. Most of them haven’t seen the light of day, some have been deleted and none have ever been sold or won awards. I did do a BTec in Media and TV Production and got a 2:1 at Creative and Professional Writing and Film Studies but this isn’t about the quality of my writing. This is about the advice I have regarding the great demon that tortures writers, the eponymous block. To that end it is relevant that you know I am now too disabled to work and write as often as I can because it provides escapism and a sense of purpose. When I have not been able to write I have noticed my mood is affected and the dark days come more often. I have to fight writer’s block because when I don’t make progress in my writing I feel it.

Defining Writer’s Block.

It is always good to define terms. Someone I recently got into an argument with on twitter got angry with me for asking them to define the basic writing terms they were speaking about but it is important. One woman’s Mary Sue is another man’s Protagonist Hero. Something particularly true given I am autistic.

Writer’s Block is an inability of the creative writer to create. Simple as that. The words don’t come.

What’s interesting and important for the purposes of this piece though is that Writer’s Block itself is peculiarly vague and different for every person and at different times. The brain is a complex machine and creativity is a complex process. Writer’s Block describes a symptom that feels like a problem. The reason I think people struggle so hard to fight Writer’s Block is that they are trying to problem solve at the wrong place.

Types of Writer’s Block.

So if Writer’s Block in fact describes a symptom with multiple causes we need to outline them before we can begin to attain solutions.

Creative Block:
All things are equal but you don’t know what to write.

Energy Block:
You know what you want to write and how to write it but when you get to the writing you can’t focus and get stuff done.

Creative Insecurity:
You think you know what you want to write but every time you start to write you end up deleting everything because it’s just not good enough.

Energy Insecurity:
You can’t focus on your writing because you are tired from stressing about other things in your life.

Solutions:

Now that we have outlined some types of Writer’s Block lets discuss possible solutions.

Creative Block:
Writing is a process. It is not just output. The writer needs to take in ideas from the world around them then digest them.

If your creativity is stumped then first you need ideas. Read more, listen to audiobooks, watch letsplays, play videogames, talk to your friends and take an interest in politics. Inspiration is something you have to find in the world for yourself. It’s when you find an idea and say “I want to explore that.” When I need inspiration in a hurry I watch fanvids because they are like idea concentrate. The ideas of actors, writers, directors, editors and costume designers compressed into a few minutes with music to provide a uniting theme.

Next you need to think on those ideas. Think of it as though you have harvested the grapes from the vineyard and now you need to let them ferment before they can become wine. I find that walking while listening to music helps for me but others like showers or doing chores. Procrastinating by doing something dull like cleaning the house is actually leaving your mind free to think about your story and how the characters, setting and plot will all interact.

Then you need to flesh out what actually happens. Fermented pulped grapes are not wine before you have filtered out the pulp. This is called Pre-Writing, figuring what happens when and getting that all important starting sentence to work from. You don’t have to write anything down to Pre-Write. My process often involves doing some walking while I run through different takes on how I want to write the scene so that when I start writing I know where I’m going. That said don’t be afraid to make notes and flesh out where the story is going. I like writing long multipart stories with ensemble casts and multiple plots going on at once so sometimes it can help to first outline the plot in brief in terms what characters are doing in each scene when. That way I can go back later and focus on continuing the emotion of one set of characters arcs through their particular plots.

Energy Block:

Creativity is a complex process arising from a complex muscle that has a lot of complex tasks to perform. If you don’t think your brain has a lot of complexity to coordinate because you feel your life is dull then break down how many individual steps there are in making a cup of tea. This is why human like robots are a long way off. Our brains are fantastic machines that work hard and fast so it is normal and understandable for us to come to a task, know exactly what we want to do but be unable to fulfil it because our brains don’t have the energy.

Energy is not simple either. You can’t just write when you get up. For me I need the right mix of being fresh from waking being caffeinated by diet coke, having eaten breakfast so I have slow burn energy and nutrients with a kick from the adrenaline of exercise. I know well that sleep is hard to come by and exercise is hard to do but even pacing around the kitchen for a few minutes can help get those endorphins flowing and remember to eat and always have a drink with you. Dehydration will make you tired and if the temperature is too hot or cold for you that will drain your energy too.

Creative Insecurity:

My favourite writer, Douglas Adams, was infamously plagued by this type of Writer’s Block, to the point where many tales are told of his producers or publishers effectively locking him in a room with a computer and a deadline to force him to just get something out. One of my friends quite clearly has this type of Writer’s Block too, forever fretting that their writing isn’t good enough. Heck I’ve had a version of this too. After a fanfic I wrote caused me to lose friends I became so terrified of writing something that could be perceived negatively that I kept deleting what I wrote and worrying that it wasn’t good enough. 

The solution - stop panicking and just write damned thing - is far easier said than done. So I have more practical solutions. Chiefly, I think the goal is to attain a flow state. In a flow state you aren’t thinking about yourself. You are lost in the moment, focused on your task. How do you achieve that though?

Well, I use a process that is almost ritualistic in nature. There is comfort in ritual. Writing is scary, a leap into the unknown with your heart on show for all to see and snark at, but ritual is comforting. I have my favourite cardigan and my favourite dressing gown. I have places I like my favourite drink placed just so and I have my prewriting ritual so I am pumped and know what I want to write before I arrive at my desk.

This is actually important, trying to write from a blank page is hard so write something. This is part of why I like prologues in medias res but just get something down so you aren’t staring into the void and never just arrive at your word processor with no idea of what you want to write. The page is your stage and it is very easy to get performance anxiety if you walk on to the stage with no idea of what you want to perform. This might seem obvious but I think it bares stating.

Another thing I do, is I listen to music that is thematically appropriate to what I write. I have it turned down low so I can write but it stops the awkward silences when I think of what I want to write next from allowing negative thoughts to creep in because there is no awkward silence there is just the music that continues the theme I want to tell.

Energy Insecurity:

As I mentioned about I recently had a big bout of Writer’s Block because I felt anxious about whether my writing would offend people. I ended up getting a prescription for anti-anxiety meds after I deleted a half a million word story and the backups once I had completed it. It is natural and normal to not be able to focus on your writing if something else is weighing on your mind. This is why I can’t write when I am angry at somebody or when I am having a ptsd attack.

I do however have suggestions to help with this kind of Writer’s Block. Having a ritual before writing can be calming, the familiarity bringing serenity and prioviding a break from the outside world. I also use a programme called Focus Writer so I’m not distracted by anything on my computer and I have big over ear headphones so I don’t hear notifications or people calling to me. Shout ther distractions and sources of anxiety.

Anyway, I hope this helps people.

Remember a bad draft can be edited later, a non-existent draft can’t be made better.

The Naming of Things

Bloggage 3rd February 2019

Bloggage
3rd February 2019

By
Alexander Gordon Jahans

So that’s three stories up so far, two from the old continuity and one from the new series.

In case you were wondering this is is a brief timeline of events in terms of where stories can be set.

Era 1. Pre Foundation - The Nothingness before the multiverse and when it was very young. in this time the elder gods exist but they are just clouds floating through the nothingness.

Era 2. The Dark Times - The Farsh-nuke has absorbed the soul of Lucy Danse, realised he has a male identity and become obsessed with women. He convinces his best friend the Bam-Kursh that women are awesome and together they go off terrorising the multiverse. Spring-Heeled Jack joins in like the mutual friend you don’t really know who goes too far.

Era 3. Post Execution - The Seven Great Empires have caught, tried and executed the Elder Gods

Era 4. The New Dawn - The Great Farsh-nuke founds the Logicios as guardians of the Multiverse and other Elder Gods come out of hiding.

Era 5. The Corruption - The Logicios have grown decadent and seed worlds to draw out the Farsh-nukes and make them remember who they are so they will be bound by morality and they can safely use them as assets. The Septaganoids grow from a nuisance and a pest to a threat.

Era 6. The Great Septagonoid War. - The Logicios are now definitively facists but the only thing preventing the multiverse being destroyed by the deeply pedantic Septagonoids. The Sylph Liberation Front begins as a resistance movement.

Era 7. The War Of The Hundred Million Universes - The Logicios wage war on a hundred million universes in the hopes of colonising them and ensuring they have the troops to ensure they don’t lose the Great Septagonoid War. Aided by an incarnation of Lucy Danse later called the Paragon the Hundred Million Universes give the Logicios enough of a bloody nose that they are able to negotiate a peace settlement and the United Civilisations of the Multiverse begins.

Era 8. Reign of the Paragon - Lucy Dance is the Paragon of Virtue and Heir to the power of the Great Farsh-nuke. She empowers the Bam-Kursh to ply their trade as the Toy Maker if they expand the United Civilisations of the Multiverse and negotiates the fight against the Septagonoids and the cold war with the Logicios.

Era 9. The United Civilisations versus the Logicios - The Logicios have been warn down by a ridiculously long war while the United Civilisations have grown ever stronger thanks to the Bam-Kursh. With the final end of the Great Septagonoid War came the vanishing of every Farsh-nuke and Lucy. It is up to their respective organisations to then fight it out.

Era 10. Fragile Peace. - The Logicios lost the war with only a small amount allowed to remain and form a better Logicio peace force to protect the multiverse while empire loyalists snuck off to different parts of the multiverse. Without the threat of a foe nor the charisma of a great leader to keep them united the United Civilisations quietly disbanded,

Era 11. The Ideology War. - With the Farsh-nuke gone the other Elder Gods have little interest in the ongoing state of affairs except that the Farsh-nuke’s old executioner Professor Logicity was warned of the coming ideology war and asked to back the Sylph Liberation front and what they wanted the multiverse to be. Professor Logicity turned to the Elder God he knew would be most in line with this new progressive outlook the non-binary Viorum Kaztif-tan and together they helped the leaders of the SLF found what would be called the Freedom Collective. They also resolved to create a new god to fill the role left by the Farsh-nuke, Robert Gordon Banks is the man who ends up taking on this role with Amy Hurst as his bodyguard.

The threat comes from the trillionaire Richard Raspberry and the so-called Alpha God Adam Godwinson. One Farsh-nuke survived through a loophole and was able to try and defeat their growing fascist movement through political means. He failed and became the plaything of Adam Godwinson until the Freedom Collective crushed the Raspberry Reich and freed the last Farsh-nuke.

Era 12. The Current Era -  The Freedom Collective has won and the multiverse is at peace. For now at least.

There is however one small thing. Every era that I have mentioned which has so far featured the multiverse has taken place within the same place in every universe, Earth. Once you know that life exists in one place and you live in a multiverse, just visit the same place every time why go anywhere else. We don’t just live in a multiverse of universes though. Every universe is itself a kind of inflationary multiverse, with connected pockets of different space time. Within one of these pockets gods from Era 2 got stuck and created the Mundis Turpis out of boredom.

Thus we have Era 12 B. The New Goddess - Amy Hurst is the new Goddess after the Events of the Way back and the fantasy series follows her story.

I currently have multiple stories already written for the series called Love Hurst set during Era 12 B The New Goddess, they just need to be proofread and edited though I want to rework episode 2 so it might be a while before that series is updated. I am also working on one scifi series set in the same general area  as the Mundis Turpis Stories.

I also hope to proofread more old stories from different eras, edit them and publish them but bare with me.

You can follow me on twitter @farshnuke.

New Beginnings

New Beginnings

A Bloggage

By

Alexander Gordon Jahans

How do we define the end of one chapter of a person’s life and the beginning of another? When they start or finish a course of study? When they move out? How about when they get a kid or a puppy? What about when the divide is less clear?

I have felt for the last few years that my death was a certainty and not far away. I don’t feel that any more. My life is still somewhat precarious and I am still somewhat laissez faires about the possibility of my demise but I do believe now that, all things being equal I am probably not about to die in the next few years. That is a scary thought to make external. It feels as if I am tempting the universe to prove me wrong. That fear though is a good sign.

I still have anxiety, I still have dark days when I wonder what the point is but I have accepted now that this is what my life is and what it will be for the foreseeable future so I intend to make my life, such as it is, as quantitatively good as I can, given  the limited sources and energy I have to hand.

The nazis have started their march towards defeat and late capitalism crumbles under the stream of brexit’s stupidity. There is nothing like racism to expose the evil in the world and motivate the just to fight it.

I have hope, true hope, for the first time in a long time and I have my writing. My writing that brings me so much pleasure. There will be people that hate it because it’s weird or because they consider a man writing about submissive women inherently sexist or creepy. That is going to happen and I can’t stop it but I will continue my writing because I know women are just as keen to write and read stuff about submissive women.

Anyway. Merry new year. Here’s to new beginnings. 

Sorry for the Hiatus

Anxiety is bad.

I am working on a new fantasy prose series called Love Hurst. Whether I will actually finish it is another matter.

So to explain a little. I wrote fairly prolifically during a period after graduating a course in Creative and Professional Writing and Film Studies. During this time I got diagnosed with Kallman's Syndrome and Growth Hormone Deficiency and experienced depression as a result of this. Add in nazi stalkers and family drama and things started to reach as boiling point. Then I fucked up.

I wrote a fanfic about some podcasters in the new media that I still respect and enjoy the work of even if it's sometimes painful. The problem is that I am stupid, autistic, still figuring out my kinks, still learning about how to best represent transgender people and I have condition where I as a cis man need testosterone injections that I personally would love to cure, even if it meant drinking a cocktail of shit and vomit. I do think that some things were taken out of context. Like it's pretty clearly SRS in a bottle if you read the context and it is established within the story that I and the Farsh-nuke are separate characters. That said the people who made the accusations were people I regarded as good friends and trusted and they made pretty clear that it wasn't just the fanfic that was the issue so I believe them. This event genuinely destroyed me. I don't think I will ever stop feeling sorry. Which in itself feels arrogant and selfish. As if the only plight affecting transgender people is some nonsense I wrote in a free fanfiction.

I have basically spent my whole life being bullied in one shape or form and I have a lot of internalised self loathing as a result butt the one thing I held in good regard about myself was my behaviour and morality. That illusion was destroyed and it destroyed my faith in myself and in my writing.

Add into this mess nazi stalkers fired up by Trump and Brexit becoming frenzied at my deteriorating sate of mind and I decided to chuck it all in and delete my stuff.

I have been on anti-anxiety meds for about a year now and I feel better, more stable, there are less steep cliffs. That's not to say it's all perfect, I cried more in the last six months from just general stress and exhaustion than I have about anything since I finished school.

I am though reaching the point where I am considering self publishing my content again. What I will try to do is go through each story I upload fixing typos and changing needlessly problematic content. I say needlessly problematic content because when you write fetish stuff and horror stuff there is generally problematic stuff that comes with the territory but I will try to be better about flagging that content so you don't see it if it bothers you.

There are some stories I am considering rewriting and uploading to form a background for new fantasy series coming sometime towards the end of next year. I hope you will join me then.