Submitted by Tina Jens (Sep 30, 2009)

Pre-writing rituals are something I'm exploring right now. I've found them to be very effective, though I'm faced with a similar challenge of finding one for use when I write in coffee shops or other public places.

I'm not here to speak about myself, but it's about writing rituals, as you named them. I think a good writing ritual would be writing plots or summaries in a notebook; "Chapter 1: King dies and Queen takes over. Chapter 2: Queen murdered and Northmen declare war. Chapter 3: etc etc" you know what I'm talking about, but do it with as much details as you can, and then try writing the "climax" scenes or ones of importance separately, the opening and ending and so, and you have something build on. Writing is the first step to doing anything useful about that wonderful story idea in your head. "It's not there if it's not there" (there = paper) Start with the Speculation Stage: notes, scraps, character descriptions, and whatever you see essential to the storyline that you want to keep track of until you have that storyline crystal clear in your head. Write all these and seeing how distorted all that is, don't panic, just go on. Then comes the harder part, the Creation Stage: here you start writing the story, or just linking it together and doing the needed modifications if you've already written the important scenes. Just let it flow. Don't worry when it looks poor at some parts, revise it when you're done with it. (However, if it's ALL poor, maybe you should take a different approach towards the story, or the writing style; parallel storylines, inverted time sequence, flashbacks, fast-paced action, etc) Three things you should NOT do: 1. Despair or be bored 2. Copy somebody 3. Use your dictionary/thesaurus If you're 50% lucky, 50% skilled, and 100% determined, your story's as good as written...

I suppose I'm one of the lucky ones, for I don't get that kind of block. For me, if I sit down to write, all I need to do is get one word on the page, and then the words start flowing. But instead I get a different kind of block. If I have started on a new idea for a story, the writing of it will go well for a couple of weeks or so. But that doesn't last, soon I will look back over my work, and see all the faults in it. I'll lose faith in what I've written, doubting whether the idea is really that good or not. I'm trying to write through my block, but if anyone has any advice, I'm open.