Start the Ball Rolling

by Anu Lal                            

Image Courtesy: Google

Today, I have a special article for you. This article is special because it touches one of my favorite subjects—writing. I am trying here to suggest three strategies that can help writers find their rhythm in their craft, after a severe writers’ block. The mantra of course, is starting the ball rolling. And keep it rolling too. I hope you would enjoy this “post-writers’ block strategies.”  

To hope for success, one must first start the journey. Starting trouble is fear in its vigorous imposition. Often writers succumb themselves to the fear to start a new story. This often happens immediately after writing a story or a book, as a post-publishing syndrome, mostly. The next work would always be decisive. It would chalk out the identity of the writer. These thoughts crowd the writer’s mind and more often than not, every writer feels insecure to begin something new, after one successful work.

This is not exactly the fear of losing or the lack of competence. On the other hand, starting woes are essentially associated with the insecurity in looking failure in the eye. This is in effect, a ‘what if?’. It would tear off their shields of confidence. What if I could not produce the quality, they suppose me to be a master of? This question breeds insecurity, but it should not be misunderstood with the occasional bout of inner stress known by the notorious name, writer’s block.

Efficient planning and effective strategies can help writers start the ball rolling again. Three key points are given below;

Editing any previously written manuscript

Go to you file folders or notebooks and find any manuscript you worked with some time before. The next is the process of preparation. Pick up a publisher’s address or a magazine’s website and prepare your manuscript according to their guidelines for publishing. Re-read, edit and proofread your manuscript. By the end of this process, you will be able to clear your thoughts on unnecessary concerns. This method works through a process called ‘channeling’. As a writer, you are channeling all your attention and energies on the craft, while editing and proofing your unpublished manuscript. Through channeling, individual would be able to fix one’s attention and eliminate other concerns.   

Compulsive writing on random ideas

This is a traditional method and like all traditional methods, based on ritualistic practices. Through compulsive writing on random ideas, a writer is partaking in an initiation process. The ritual and the practitioner are equally important in this method. The writer, starting on a random word should keep on writing whatever comes to his mind, with or without a prior planning. This method works better when the writer attempts to follow the stream of randomly generated words.   

Extensive reading

Although, no ‘writing’ is present in the sub-heading, this is a very useful method with an undeniable impact. This always worked for me and for many of my friends too. Extensive reading, here, suggests not just a long period of research, or even reading for research. It suggests a focused attempt to spend as much time as possible with the book you read, currently. The principle that is under work in this method can be called invocation. The writer invokes the elements of craft that lay in dormant stage in one, through a voluntary attempt to peruse without stop for a long time. In my case, it goes on to four or five hours.   
   
The one idea I would like you focus, the one idea that can help you beyond anything else, is hope. However, hope is inevitably related to action. Without starting a project, we have no right to hope for its success. 
 

Bio: Anu Lal is the first Indian author to write a trilogy of short story collections in English. 'Hope, Vengeance and History' trilogy is an interconnected neuron of short stories. The first book in this trilogy is Wall of Colours and Other Stories. He is also a columnist in an American journal and a translator.

blog: http://anu-lal.blogspot.in/; 
Goodreads.com

Author Page Amazon 
Kindle