Conquering Writer's Block and Summoning Inspiration: Learn to Nurture a Lifestyle of Creativity

CONQUERING WRITER’S BLOCK AND SUMMONING INSPIRATION

Learn to Nurture a Lifestyle of Creativity

K.M. Weiland

PenForASword Publishing

Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration

Copyright © 2014 K.M. Weiland

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

Published by PenForASword Publishing

ISBN-13: 978-0-9857804-4-9

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Position yourself to live an inspired life and send the dreaded writer’s block packing.

Inspiration is a slippery thing at the best of times. But as a writer, you can’t afford to wait around on Madam Muse’s goodwill. In this encouraging e-book, award-winning author K.M. Weiland shows you how to nurture creativity and put it at your summons, rather than the other way around. After reading this book, you will be able to:

• Build a lifestyle that encourages inspiration

• Say goodbye to destructive guilt over wasting time on creative endeavors

• Discover why inspiration isn’t so much a feeling as an act of will

• Understand what to do when your best-laid writing plans go awry

• Use your non-writing time to boost your creative energy

• Apply specific tips to prevent and combat writer’s block

• Instill habits for improving your efficiency and commitment as an author

Nurture a lifestyle of creativity that will keep your fingers flying over the keyboard!

Join the discuss: #ConqueringWritersBlock

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: How to Be Inspired Every Day

Chapter 2: How to Optimize Your Imagination

Chapter 3: How to Conquer Fear, Anxiety, and Depression

Chapter 4: How to Avoid Common Creativity Killers

Chapter 5: How to Overcome a Fear of Failure

Chapter 6: How to Fight Writer's Block

Chapter 7: How to Create Good Writing Habits

Chapter 8: How to Embrace Yourself as a Writer

Introduction

IF YOU’RE LIKE most writers, coming up with story ideas is rarely a problem. More than likely, your brain bubbles over with more ideas than you’ll be able to use in two and a half lifetimes. I’ve yet to meet a writer who decided, Hmm, I’d like to be an author—and then sat down to brainstorm ideas. Instead, most of us turned to writing as a way to release the pressure of the ideas already ricocheting around in our brains.

The problem isn’t that we have too few ideas, but rather that we’ll never live long enough to write the ideas we already have. Of course, that really isn’t a problem; it’s a tremendous blessing. And if a little blessing is good, a lot of blessing must be even better, right? If a little bit of inspiration has us soaring up near the ceiling, why not go whole hog and open ourselves to inspiration in every possible way?

Ultimately, inspiration is an intensely personal experience—unrepeatable and often unresponsive to conscious prodding. You can’t force inspiration. It either happens or it doesn’t. You can’t sit yourself down at your desk, squeeze your eyes shut, and demand inspiration appear in front of you complete with drum roll and puff of smoke. Inspiration is a gift, and like all gifts it must be treated with gratitude and responsibility.

But none of this is to say we can’t position ourselves in the path of inspiration. Instead of just waiting around for the muse to hit us in the head with a lightning bolt, we can ingrain the habit of opening ourselves to inspiration.

In the following pages, we’ll be exploring this most important and, in some ways, trickiest aspect of the writing life. I’ll be sharing tricks for vanquishing that dreaded bugbear of all authors—writer’s block—and offering ideas on cultivating a lifestyle and writing routine that nurtures inspiration.

K.M. Weiland

Chapter 1: How to Be Inspired Every Day

LET’S START WITH a handful of tips for composing an invitation Madam Muse won’t be able to resist.

Tip #1: Pay Attention to the Details

Writing is the details. Without these little garnishes, most stories could easily be summed up in a sentence or two. People read fiction because they want to experience life. They want to see the way the dust motes turn to gold in a shaft of sunlight, and they want to smell the delicate spray of an orange rind as it is peeled back.

In order to share all these minutiae with readers, we first have to notice them ourselves. But don’t just notice them; experience them. In the end, a story is about the little things as much, if not more, than the grand scope of life and death. So pay attention to the color of the sky right before the sun dips below the horizon, notice the way the bass in a sound system thrums in the soles of your feet, absorb the smell of rain so deeply that you can describe it instinctively. Paying attention to the details will plump up your prose, but even better—who knows when you’ll stumble upon some inconsequential and heretofore unnoticed intricacy that will prompt your next story?

Tip #2: Look Beyond the Cliché

Keep your eyes wide open for the unexpected. Look beyond the obvious in search of dichotomies. Broaden your