{"id":3869,"date":"2019-08-15T17:34:01","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T17:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mouseferatu.com\/2019\/08\/15\/writers-constipation\/"},"modified":"2019-08-16T22:40:51","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T22:40:51","slug":"writers-constipation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mouseferatu.com\/?p=3869","title":{"rendered":"Writer’s constipation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forgive the, uh, unpleasant<\/em> connotations of the metaphor. But there’s a particular frustration associated with writing–at least for me; I assume for others–and I can’t think of a better term for it.<\/p>\n

It’s not writer’s block, not exactly. It’s far more specific. The phenomenon I’m speaking of is this:<\/p>\n

Right now, I’m struggling with a short story I want to write. I have the basic concept of the story, but I have been unable, for the life of me, to make the jump from "concept" to "story." I know what the story’s about<\/em>; I just don’t know what happens<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And it’s irritating as all hell. It’s not a problem I have frequently, but when I do, it stops me cold. It’s almost worse than not having an idea at all, because when that’s the case, all I need is to find some inspiration. In this<\/em> case, I have the gist. I have the "elevator pitch," as it were. I could write a summary or a blurb. But I absolute haven’t been able to figure out how to break that idea down into the concrete details–the actual events–that form a story<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What makes it even worse is that this is a character I’ve written before, and really enjoy writing, so it should<\/em> be coming easier<\/em> than other stuff. But again, my problem isn’t the character, it’s the plot.<\/p>\n

Urgh. I know that it’s not ultimately that big a deal. Either I’ll figure it out, or I’ll abandon the short story idea. But it’s so frustrating, having the raw materials of an idea and not being able to sculpt a coherent story out of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forgive the, uh, unpleasant connotations of the metaphor. But there’s a particular frustration associated with writing–at least for me; I assume for others–and I can’t think of a better term for it. It’s not writer’s block, not exactly. It’s far more specific. The phenomenon I’m speaking of is this: Right now, I’m struggling with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-old-news","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mouseferatu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mouseferatu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mouseferatu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mouseferatu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mouseferatu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/mouseferatu.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mouseferatu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mouseferatu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mouseferatu.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}