I'm an author, so my preferred medium of communication tends to be the written word. I like writing emails, letters, notes, blogs, books, etc. I'm also an introvert, so quiet time alone is how I recharge my battery. That said, sometimes what I need to get out of my writer's block is not to take a few days (weeks) to think through it before I start writing again. Sometimes what I need is for someone to push me verbally through the block.
I do that with web interviews. I do this for myself, and I do it with and for clients. Sometimes what you need to get writing again is for someone to push and poke at your ideas... and record it.
Here's how it works:
1. Video call: I use Skype or Google Hangouts. I prefer this to a one on one meeting because it feels more focused, not like a social outing, it gives us both a buffer zone so that we're not reacting entirely to body language but more so to voice, and it can be recorded for me to go back and listen to again.
2. Open Forum: I ask a friend or editor to get on the video call with me for 30 minutes or so, sometimes 45. I tell them a bit about what I've been writing, then what I want to end up with or what direction I want to go in, all in just a minute or two, and then I turn it over to them to drive the conversation. I ask them to ask me questions about who, what, where, when, why, how and play devil's advocate. I ask them to make me justify characters and scenes (or topics and anecdotes for non-fiction/business books). When I do this for clients I ask a lot of questions about how they want the reader to feel, what they want the reader to walk away with, who they see reading this and what they want them to say about it. I also ask tough questions like, "Why should anyone care about what you're writing?" or "Why should I read your book instead of xyz?" and then push until there are answers. It can be exhausting. For a fiction book, I've had major breakthroughs trying to explain why I need certain secondary characters, or why a certain scene is in the book.
3. Recordable: Try it. Then go through the agonizing but beneficial act of listening to yourself talk about your own writing. It's amazing what you notice yourself saying over and over in just a 30 minute session where someone is pushing you. You come to a clear understanding of what you are trying to do with a book, what you can't explain yet and where the holes are, and you get to have this semi-objective (if excruciating) experience of hearing yourself explain something so close to your heart out loud.
It's humbling, revealing, and always moves me forward. The recording part is key, here. It is half of the experience. The questions in the moment are good to push you out of your comfortable writer's block, but listening again the next day or a week later, you have different answers. Those differences are often the points I jump on to write about and get me out of my slump.
4. Comfort Zone: As writers, we are comfortable with words but often less comfortable with speaking. Part of the magic of these interviews is that they are out loud, not on paper. We are rooted in the familiar (talking about our latest work/book), but we are having to do it in a way that we are not comfortable with, or at least less comfortable. Hearing our ideas out loud is a great jumping off point in and of itself because it's the same words in a different communication style.
5. Team: Whoever is asking the questions is on your side and wants you to succeed. You know this at the core of the conversation, so it's easier to suspend crushing feelings of inadequacy that all of us have when someone questions or digs into our writing. This technique is not for the faint of heart or for the defensive-minded. It is for the full-contact artist who wants to break blocks and move forward no matter what it takes. No pride here, only driven creation.
Have you been on either side of a writer's block interview?
Image source: sven_kindler via flickr and FourthFloor also via flickr
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