by Susan Shwartz
Learn all about how Susan Shwartz conquered her most devastating period of writer’s block in this illuminating blog post on the craft of writing and learning how to become an author again. Be sure to read Susan’s latest novelette, “Because It’s There,” in our [November/December issue, on sale now!]
Here’s my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose
And the reindeer roared where Paris roars to-night: —
There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And — every — single — one — of — them — is — right!
(“In the Neolithic Age,” by Rudyard Kipling)
What Rudyard Kipling wrote about actual writing is true for writer’s block. There are many ways of suffering it and working through it, and every single one of them that produces text is right. (Every single one of them that doesn’t produce text isn’t wrong; it’s just acutely painful.)
I give you my word, I really have heard all the pronouncements about how there is no such thing as writer’s block, or it can be resolved by discipline, by exercise, by sitting in front of the computer until the words finally come, etc., etc., etc. until the writer or editor delivering the pronouncement feels very good about themselves and the writer feels like hell
I’ve been selling fiction since the very late 1970s, from long novels to stories that come in under 3000 words. I’ve also had several kinds of writer’s block. There’s the kind I get when I feel awful. There’s the block that comes after I’ve finished a major project and I’m just plain tired. Or the block that happens after I’ve written a number of shorter pieces full speed ahead over a period of several months, I’ve temporarily emptied out my idea file, and my wrists and fingers, although trained by Russian concert pianists, simply ache like hell.
My Worst Writer’s Block
And then there’s the killer writer’s block that can happen when I’m not just written out and tired, but completely alienated from writing, the process, the very idea of writing itself, and I stop. Cold. Not for a couple of weeks or a month or until the next deadline looms up, but for years.
This happened to me in 2006. I told you, years. In one disastrous month, I lost two major trade publishers and my job as a vice president of marketing communications at what was then called Citigroup Alternative Investments. I faced a choice: either write a book on spec, with no assurance that even my agent would represent it and preferably under a pseudonym, or devote my full energy to a major job search.
I had rent and a pedigreed dentist to pay off, not to mention Amex. I went to outplacement like a dutiful flunkey and found a job within about three months, which is relatively short as jobs at the VP level were at the time. And I really was writing—cover letters, resumes, writing tests (ugh–they make you feel like a hooker giving out backseat samples)–my journal, and “documentation” because I was working with a lawyer . . . less said about that the better.
But I had given up on fiction. Nobody wanted it, so why even try? Besides, I was focusing on Wall Street, right? Right? For awhile, I was quite content doing just that, despite girlbosses who didn’t just edit but overwrite my work and boybosses who ‘splained what I’d done wrong. The financial material was interesting, I had good colleagues, etc.
I traveled. I went to the opera. I did all sorts of good things. I stopped going to conventions and told myself I didn’t miss them. I was a damn liar.
Getting Out of Dodge
In 2019 I even moved out of New York City to Connecticut with my partner and retired from financial writing. That was the best of all. The Pandemic and lockdown gave me plenty of time to think. Post-lockdown, we began to travel. In the course of our wanderings, we looked at many sites, Neolithic and other, on Malta, Sardinia, Sicily, the Orkneys, Israel, and Alaska, which was a totally different landscape.
I saw real barrows, sailed on a Tall Ship, scrubbed out my mind with sea air, and filled it with new sights and thoughts.
Climbing Back into the Saddle–Gradually
Gradually, the sorts of ideas I used to have started creeping back into my mind the way they’d done when I was still actively writing. Scenes. Characters. And, prickling at the back of my thoughts, the question “What if?” “What if?” had always led to research, and I realized I was enriching Amazon as I hadn’t done for years.
I discovered the “notes” feature on my I-Phone was really good for making notes—notes that led into ideas, ideas that spun themselves into a narrative. When we returned from Alaska, I started writing them down. And writing, and writing, and writing. I just didn’t talk about it.
One book led to another. They’re both still circulating.
Then, people started talking to me about short stories. For me, one sure way to produce short stories is to assign me something or invite me into an anthology. Because I’d been so long out of the loop, those invitations, that network, had passed me by. I wanted back in in the worst way. Facebook provided the impetus. So did Michael Burstein, who was working on an anthology called Jewish Futures.
And the first short-story “What if” put on crampons and asked me “what if Israelis and Palestinians climbed Mount Everest together?” As an armchair mountaineer, I needed no encouragement to begin.
Learning How I Write, All Over Again
Now, how was I going to begin and to carry on? Keep calm and carry on, as the Brits say? Not bloody likely, as they also say.
SF writers usually divide themselves into two groups: plotters, who work from synopses and detailed outlines that may define each chapter and what goes into it, and pantsers, who write by the seat of their pants. Which was I? After all, it had been a long time?
The only way I could find out was actually to write a short story. Or two. Or about twenty, which is my count since I began writing again.
Where do I get my crazy ideas? From the crazy idea factory in Schenectady, of course. But seriously . . . here’s how I personally do it.
I open a document file. I type in my idea. Then, I free associate with every possible permutation I can come up with. If I’m very lucky, a useful quotation occurs to me, like the one that began this blog posting. That goes into the file too. I have some idea of my surroundings or my type of character, and I google on them. Copy, cut, and paste.
About this time, the prickle at the back of my mind turns into a full-fledged literary migraine, and I just know who my main characters are and how the hell they get themselves into these situations. Situation? If you’re writing about Everest, you know the possible situations: earthquake, collapses of seracs in the Khumbu Ice Fall, avalanches, blizzards, and the physical consequences of all of them.
At this point, I have a big fat document file, and I start working through it, cutting and pasting and organizing it into some semblance of order. That’s the plotter streak in me.
Or, if I’m writing about the Soviet Space Program, I go through James Oberg’s Red Star in Orbit as well as Dr. Google, and I look for catastrophes that might serve as plot points. Bingo! The instant one turns up, I pounce on it, just as the catastrophe pounced on its victims. Mix in my characters. Mix in the theme of the anthology. At this point, I know what I need to say, and I start doing what directors and actors do on stage. Writer’s block is gone: now, there’s only theatrical blocking—plot points and where they go. If I am very lucky, the moment comes when a character rears up off the page, and tells me, “No, you idiot, that’s not what happened. THIS is what happened.”
And then, I get to peer into my document as if it were a camera lens and write down precisely what this mouthworks of a character tells me. At this point, I’m not just pantsing my story, I’m racing down the narrative arc as if I were in an Olympics luge competition—fast, lean against crashing against a wall, zooming around the curve. The end of any such story derives not from the luge or the crampons and the mountain ax, but from the giant slalom in the Olympic games.
Metaphors to Write By
My convenient metaphor is that the writer, like the champion skier, zooms down the mountain, jumps around the moguls (bumps that resemble snow-covered barrows) and finally reaches the home stretch. At this point, all obstacles are gone. Spectators are screaming and ringing cowbells, and the skiier’s only goal is to crouch into a tuck position, ski poles under their arm, body as aerodynamically efficient as possible, and make speed toward the finish line—after which they can collapse and make snow angels as the cameras and the spectators close in. THEN and only then do you get the news on the scoreboard, which may be good or may not.
But I can promise that when you’ve overwritten your outline, deleted your research, and are now sitting before your computer in a tuck position—as I am right now—as I type toward the words “the end” that I can write just as soon as I get off this mountain and deal with a spine that feels like a stale pretzel . . . it’s wonderful.
And I’m writing again, even as I whine about my aching back. The story lies in its proper file. I type “the end.” I exit carefully, so very carefully, from the document because I don’t want to lose both the story and how it’s made me feel, and go off and rest.
Then, I get to do it again. And again.
And even in this blog.
Last Friday, I just sold two more stories. My writer’s block is over. At least for now.
From Earth to the Stars 