Making Yourself Write

Somethings the words won't come. It's called
writers' block and I've mentioned it before.

And, most authors suffer the problem on one
occasion or another. Never thought it would
bother me, but it has. My biggest help to date
has been the outline I always make as I began the
book. Oh, it's not the kind of outline schools
require. No A,B,C, or roman numberals for me.
What I do is tell the story. Not show! I'll
address that another time. Nope, I tell the story
leaving out all dialogue, description, anything that
could be considered showing. An example of that
would be the love scene, if the book has one. I
write 'A love scene.'

With that outline before me, I know where the
story is going and I can write, filling in the
details as I go. Oh, I may have to throw a good
part away, but I force myself to write.

And, that leads to throwing words away. In
the beginning, I couldn't do it. What I wrote was
set in stone! Then I discovered I could trim a word or
two and make it sound better, then came sentences, then
paragraphs,you get the idea. Now, I have no trouble throwing
away a whole page or two. The point is - I'm writing.
It may not be good, in fact it may be awful, but, I'm
writing. And, I can make awful - good! For me it works.

Allison
"Simon's Brides" coming
from Wings-Press, May '06