As promised, here are my suggestions for overcoming the obstacles that I mentioned last week.

1) STRESS – Try to channel the negative feeling of stress into something creative. Unleash your feelings onto the page. I know that this sounds a lot easier than it is to do, but once you get over the first sentence words seem to flow. A warning though, with this solution, the work produced may not be usable other than helping you begin to write again.

If you aren’t one for writing your feelings, try to relax; read; exercise;  do something to take your mind off whatever is causing you stress and then try to write.

2) NO DEADLINES – A tip, which I have yet to try, is to get a friend to help. Tell them the deadline you want to set for yourself or get them to create one for you. This means that the deadline is no longer flexible because it isn’t you controlling it. Therefore by having someone else setting or enforcing the deadline you are more likely to stick to it and complete the tasks you want to.

3) BEING BUSY – Make an effort to carve time into your schedule to write. I’m not saying you have to have a set time everyday, because as I have said before everyone works differently. What am I saying is whenever you find yourself with a free moment, seize it. The more you do this, the faster you’ll get back into the swing of writing.

4) TOO MANY IDEAS – Plan or at the very least note down all of your ideas. This way you will be able to see if the story is something you really want to write. Also, by jotting the ideas down, even if you only choose to write one of them at the time, the others are there for future reference.

If this doesn’t help, talk things through with someone else. I find it helps to have a sounding board because chances are that the person that you are talking to will have a different perspective, so will point out things that you hadn’t even considered. Talking things out can possibly do two things, it can demonstrate which one you are more enthusiastic about or can make you lean towards one idea, due to the discussion. The second person can also provide you with an insight into which idea would be more welcomed by the audience you will be aiming at as well.

5) A LACK OF IDEAS – Make use of the many online writing prompts or the books designed specifically for writers block. Don’t be fussy though, otherwise I know from personal experience that you can spend hours searching for one. It is surprising how doing this exercise can help to get the ideas flowing.

Another suggestion would be to find an old idea and rework it. I find this activity to be quite interesting to do, because the end result can be completely different from what you had originally intended. After all your writing style may have changed and your experience will have grown since the idea’s conception.

6) REJECTION/ DISAPPOINTMENT – Take a week or two away from the piece in question. Make sure to keep the critiques safe, but put them out of your mind. Then, once, you have distanced yourself, return to the piece. Re read the work, before looking over the comments, generally this time round you will be able to see where the editor is coming from. If this is not the case, I would suggest discussing it with the editor, so that you can understand their view.

So, I hope this entry has been helpful. These are just my tips for overcoming these issues, so may not work for everyone. If you have any other solutions I would be happy to hear them.