Confronting Writer’s Block
The dreaded words. Writer’s block. The bane of so many authors’ writing journeys. The reason deadlines are missed or books are rushed. The empty-brained feeling. The staring at a blank document for hours, days, and weeks on end. The endless procrastination. The excuses to the editor.
WRITER’S BLOCK.
It happens. It happens to all of us. I do believe you’d be hard pushed to find an author who hasn’t faced writer’s block and who hasn’t given up completely on a story because of it.
It’s scary. You never see it coming. It just… happens.
It’s unrelenting. Unforgiving. It takes no prisoners.
But, it can be beaten.
Anecdotal Evidence
I’ve written a novella. The Blackstone Legacy. It was my first finished book. It was not my first attempt at writing a book. In fact, I’ve attempted to write many books. Most end up in the trashcan because, you guessed it, I encountered writer’s block.
Writer’s block comes and rears its ugly head and months go by where I haven’t touched my story, and soon, I have forgotten next to everything about it. Then a new idea comes along, I start writing, and the process repeats.
So how exactly did I get past it when I wrote The Blackstone Legacy?
The answer is easy.
This time, I had a plan. I knew everything about my story, where it was going, the characters, how it would unfold, how the chapters would play out.
More so, however, I had momentum. Every spare moment was spent converting my plan into words on the page. I didn’t stop long enough for writer’s block to set in. I didn’t have any gaps in my plan to give writer’s block a chance at stalling me.
This is fine. I set myself up to prevent writer’s block from ever occurring. But what about when it does?
Well, I’d be lying if I didn’t say, it has.
I’m working on my second book. A fantasy novel, the first of a series. I’m about a third done. And writer’s block has caught hold of me.
I need to shake it.
And I have a plan.
GrammarGuru
Knowing that I was facing writer’s block, knowing that I needed to overcome it, somehow, and knowing that it is more than likely going to happen again I lept at a very interesting opportunity.
My good friend, my longest friend, my friend since childhood decided that it had been way too long since either of us had a good catch-up. To fill each other in on all the events that had happened since we last spoke.
As is the way of the world, we had a call through Zoom. Mainly because we both live in different countries from each other.
On this call, he came to me with a proposition of working together on a side project. Something that we could do together, build together and that would benefit not only us, but so many others in the world.
I jumped at the chance. It was the perfect opportunity to build something that could beat my writer’s block, that could help him with his job, that could help countless people around the globe.
With AI proving its worth with the recent success of Chat-GPT, we decided that an AI-powered writing companion is exactly what we wanted to build. I have the skills to build it, he has the skills to market it.
Together, we created GrammarGuru. GrammarGuru is the writing companion you never knew you needed but that you can’t live without once you start using it. It’s as simple as that. It’s jam-packed with features and there are even more on the way!
But the real power is not just in the features it offers, but what those features can do for you.
GrammarGuru vs Writer’s Block
That writer’s block I was talking about? Well, it’s a thing of the past with GrammarGuru.
I discovered this for myself when I was building it. I made sure to incorporate features into GrammarGuru that can tackle writer’s block.
I NEEDED THEM!
There are two standout features that can really help with defeating writer’s block:
- Next Excerpt
- Writing Prompts
Next Excerpt
Next Excerpt is a neat little feature where you can tell GrammarGuru the previous couple of paragraphs of your story, and it will generate the next few paragraphs. It may not be wholly accurate to the vision you have in your head of your story, but it WILL be enough to give you that spark that helps you get back to writing, that helps you figure out exactly what SHOULD come next.
It’s simple psychology. You put in what you have. It gives you back what it thinks should happen next. You either agree or disagree with that. If you agree, you drop it into your story, and you continue on. If you disagree, you start to unravel for yourself what should come next, and you write it down.
It’s a win-win!!
You can see below an example of what it has generated for me for Tutarium: The Rise of Demons, where I am currently stuck with writer’s block.
It’s not exactly what I was going for regarding the storyline, but that’s the point. I disagree with it, and I can use that to write what I actually think should happen.
Running it through GrammarGuru again, I get a different response. Honestly, I could very easily just use the first paragraph it sent back, and modify the second one to fit the storyline. And now I’m past the point that was causing me so much hassle to try write.
Writing Prompts
You’re a writer. I get it. You don’t want some fancy AI tool to write your story for you. It makes sense. It’s not you. It’s not your voice. But you’re still fighting writer’s block!
Well, GrammarGuru has another feature that can help. Writing Prompts. Give it some information about what you’re trying to write, and watch as it asks you a bunch of questions that really get you thinking.
Thinking so much that when you answer them, it becomes easy to write the next paragraph. And when you write that paragraph, the second becomes easier, and the process repeats, you gain momentum. Then you start to wonder if you even had writer’s block at all!
Just look at the question’s it asked me for the same portion of my story that I was stuck on.
By simply answering these questions I have a new plan of how to continue on with the story. It’s clear that the monster needs to be stopped, but how? Answering that question, I can then plan a few paragraphs on how that unfolds in the story. And boom! I’m back to writing again.
Conclusion
Confronting Writer’s Block should be easy. The best way to avoid it is to prevent it from ever occurring in the first place. That requires a great deal of planning, and even when we think we have it all figured out, as most authors can attest to, the story doesn’t always follow your original plan. That leaves you in a position where writer’s block can slip in.
I helped build GrammarGuru as much for me as for everyone else. I need this tool. I need it to fight my own writer’s block, and I use it. To do this and more!
If you’re interested in making use of it yourself, you can get a 14 day Free Trial on the Pro Plan right now: https://grammarguru.app/checkout?product=pro
Or, if you don’t want to use it, but you’re still struggling with writer’s block, reach out to me. I’m more than happy to talk you through your story, rubber duck it so to speak, to see if that can help get you out of the rut!
Visit GrammarGuru now: https://grammarguru.app/
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