Writer's Block

What writer's block?  Does such a thing exist?  If it does, it goes hand-in-hand with displacement activity - you know what I mean - you sit down to write and you suddenly realise you'd better make a cup of tea, do the hoovering, re-lay the stair carpet, scratch something, or take up the bagpipes.  All perfectly admirable activities.

One way round this is to have two or three writing projects on the go at once.  This is what I do.  Currently, I have three fiction projects and some teaching resources I'm working on.  So when I start to slow down on one project, feel like a break, or have an idea for one of the others, I can switch without any feelings of guilt, failure of frustration.

Another way round it is just to get on with the hoovering!  Then you can always escape to your writing chair  if you have  Hoover's Block or Bagpipe Fatigue. Turn the tables and treat the writing as if it were displacement activity.

Conventional tips, of course, talk about establishing a writing schedule, an organised place and pattern of work.  Perhaps it depends on your own personality or your writing style.  But I'll write anywhere and everywhere.  I never start with a blank piece of paper in front of me, because I have notes and ideas in books, pieces of scrap paper, my phone, the shelf in my greenhouse, a plank of wood in my shed, the backs of cheques, everywhere.  So I always have something started.  Nor do I ever begin at the beginning.  I leave that blank first page for later when everything's sorted out.

BUT THERE IS ONE ASPECT OF WRITING THAT CAN SLOW ME DOWN.  The decisions I make about my characters, the paths I choose for them, the events I describe around them - these things fill me with something I can only describe as regret.  In choosing one road for them, I'm very aware of closing off others.  And that's hard.