Writer’s Block

          Everyone’s heard of writer’s block—that moment where a writer writes herself into a corner made of cement ten feet thick and a hundred feet tall, where there are no windows or doors, and no rope with which to pull oneself up and over the wall. The story stalls, the characters are left in limbo, and the writer loses precious hours of sleep eating cookies while staring at the computer and playing solitaire or mahjong in the hopes that something, anything, will click…and then, three months later, the click happens and the story continues in a completely new arc, which leaves the writer and the characters scrambling to understand their new roles in this new universe. It’s a painful moment for a writer, one that can stretch on for days, weeks, months, even years at a time.

          It has taken me over four years to complete my latest manuscript, which in turn completes my young adult fantasy series. What exactly happened between the completion of The Gateway and this book I cannot say. I remember telling my mama that I knew exactly what was going to happen in book 4, but when I sat down to write, nothing about it came together. Over and over I tried to find that momentum that I’d had with the other books, but I kept running into dead ends. Perhaps it had to do with daily stresses (bills, groceries, household management) or teaching stresses (These kids still don’t understand structure in poetry?!?) or Mommy stresses (seven-year-old needs trump everything else). Perhaps it had to do with the fact that, as a writer, I like to throw every single idea into the pot, thus creating a mush pile instead of a coherent story.

          My writer friend Rebecca Leanda always says, “Don’t get stuck on the beginning. Keep the story moving forward.” It is sound advice, and one that I usually follow. However, with this particular book, The Lost Guardian, I did get stuck on the beginning. Every beginning I wrote took me to one of those dead ends. I couldn’t seem to get the characters where they needed to be at the end of the story because they weren’t where they needed to be at the beginning of the story. There were too many ideas in the pot, so I forced myself to strip everything out and start completely over as if I had never written a single word of this particular manuscript.

          Thankfully, it worked.

          Now as I complete the final revisions of the manuscript in preparation of sending it to the publisher, I wonder why it took me so long to find the story. There is no trigger for writer’s block, but it does happen. There also, unfortunately, is no antidote, no ritual, no magic words the writer can use to resolve the issue. It takes perseverance—nothing more, nothing less—to get oneself out of the concrete corner.

          Oh, and cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.