Today we kick off our new guest columnist feature with the amazing Geoff Hoff. If you’d like to submit a guest post to Blogging Bistro, check out the guidelines.
I’m Geoff Hoff and I write fiction. So what is a short story writer doing hanging around a bistro for business bloggers? Well, top off your coffee, pull up a chair and I’ll tell you.
Many, if not most, of the techniques used for fiction are valuable for any type of writing. Things like how to make your writing more viscerally appealing to your reader. What to do if you can’t come up with an idea. What to do if you have far too many ideas rattling around in that thing you call a head up there under your hair. There’s more, but let me focus on just one for this post.
Writer’s block.
So many writers are frustrated by this. I say phooey. There is no such thing as writer’s block. When you feel stuck, when you don’t have an idea, there are several things you can do to move the thoughts and ideas along.
All a writer is is one who writes. If ideas aren’t flowing, prime the pump by writing something. Anything. Type, “I have nothing to write” a hundred times. Your brain will come up with something, believe me. If only to get you to stop typing that. It might also slap you upside the head, so be careful.
The Artist's Way
In her wonderful book, The Artist’s Way
Sense will show up quite uninvited. All by itself. Ideas will appear. The subconscious has lots to give back to us because we’ve fed it so much information over the years. And it doesn’t like to stay quiet, so when you just type randomly, the subconscious will have its way.
More practically, describe in detail some object or person in your immediate environment. The dusty keyboard. The wilted plant. The stinky old cat. The stinky old business associate. Use as many of the senses as possible to viscerally evoke an experience for yourself with your words.
Again, when you do this, the pump will be primed.
Give up the notion that every time you sit down to write, what you produce has to be brilliant. Sometimes it will just be okay, sometimes not even that. The point is, if you’ve written anything, you can turn that into something, and then, if you want, you can make that something into something brilliant.
Geoff Hoff is a best-selling author and also writes how-to writing guides.
With his writing partner, he will be giving an on-line course, “You Can Write a Short Story” that starts Thursday, January 14th.
Use the coupon code BISTRO at checkout for $20 off the course when you register. Learn more about the craft of writing from Geoff and his writing partner, Steve Mancini, at their Tips on Writing blog.
