abu dhabi sunshine

life, times...and opinions from Abu Dhabi

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

writer's block

It is the weekend again for me...I love how this week went by so fast. Except, I have to write something and I cannot, for the life of me, construct a single decent sentence.

I thought I'd have it done during office hours today, but I guess given that my deadline is Saturday morning, my mind went into weekend-mode a little too early.

Also, I have taken Saturday and Sunday off from work, so I want to get this piece done TONIGHT so I don't have to spend my mini-break worrying about it. But I just can't wrap my head around this thing...I hate writer's block.

You may be wondering why -if I am unable to write- I am writing here. Well, the first thing our great professors at university thaught us was that if you're having a hard time churning out a piece, either step away from it for a while, or write something completely unrelated just to get the creative juices flowing.

The former hasn't worked, even though I took a nap and got some chocolate into my system (you know, just to get some energy...right). So I'm really hoping the latter trick will work. Will keep you posted.

7 Comments:

At 9:01 PM, Blogger nzm said...

Go to sleep with it in your mind, and then when you wake up in the morning, write subconsciously - and it will work out for you.

Works for me!

Good luck!

 
At 9:08 PM, Blogger Dubai Sunshine said...

My sister values her sleep and her weekend morning routine waaay too much, so writing first thing in the morning is out of the question for her :)

Try to get it done tonight, so that you can have 4 days of complete relaxation...

I want 4 days off toooooooo :(

 
At 10:12 PM, Blogger nzm said...

Well Sky, in that case - timewarp back to yesterday so that you can sleep on it!

 
At 10:24 PM, Blogger sky said...

Good tip nzm, and it does generally work too. But I was eager to get this done.

But really, the best trick I've found is stepping away from something. One time when I was in uni, I had this piece to write, and given that I had become the worst procrastinator in the world, my deadline was less than 12 hours away. NOTHING was coming out of me, NOTHING. I sat there for 4 hours, staring at my pc screen, I was going to cry.

I got up, and said fuck it, I'm just not going to hand it in. I took a long shower, sat back in front of my pc, and the words just came out in one little half hour. Aaahh!

Anyway, DS, it's not so much the sleep I value, as I am up at 9 am even on weekends now...I'm getting old.

It's really being able to do nothing at all that I value. Which isn't so much a routine, as just being able to lazy around in bed reading the papers and browsing the net before I do anything else. :)

Ah oh! I'm done! It's a little crappy...but at least the bulk of it is done. I'll have the weekend to just go over it, so it's not too much work :)

 
At 10:50 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The same thing happened to me during MBA, trying to write a piece on F*!"@ing China! I ended up handing it in 1 hour late, it was the crapiest piece I'd ever written, and the end grade proved it. In th mean time, I traumatised Randy because he found pieces of paper everywhere in the appartment with "I HATE CHINA" written on them.

I'm nuts - and I still hate China when I think about this...

 
At 10:53 PM, Blogger Dubai Sunshine said...

Oh how I remember those days when you would freak out about a looming deadline and were staring at a blank screen.

The panicking, the crying, the anger, the sadness, the nagging, the complaining....

I deserve an honorary degree just for that :)

 
At 11:27 PM, Blogger sky said...

Haha chazoo I can just imagine finding little bits of paper with I hate China written on them. Too funny!
Really, writer's block is tough, and deadlines are so annoying!

DS, yes...I became a nerd. Shoot me :p

 

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