Writers in the Storm

There is a great deal written about the malady called Writer’s Block. Most of it is a dire warning that this could happen to you and how it cripples you and your career. It’s frightening. That’s unfortunate because it sets up writers to expect the same thing will happen to them. But writer’s block is a symptom, not a disease. It’s a symptom that something is wrong and you have to figure out what is wrong. Unfortunately, that’s not always easy. 

Writing a story is a complex task. Being a human is a complex thing, too. The number of things that could block you is almost infinite. Not only that, you may have multiple factors causing your creative mind to shut down. Developing a checklist may help you determine what is causing your creative block. 

Physical

Your physical health is essential even for the usually sedentary task of writing a story. Folks with chronic health issues are aware of this and often do a better job taking care of their physical health than those in "good" health.

If you’re not getting enough sleep, the right nutrition, enough water, and the right amount of exercise every day, you may not have the energy to write. That is one of many root causes that may cause your writer’s block. 

Symptoms of Lack of Sleep 

• Daytime sleepiness is the number one symptom (Take daytime to mean when you regularly expect to be up and functioning your best.)
• Fatigue
• Mood changes, particularly depression and irritability
• Trouble thinking, focusing, remembering
• Slowed reaction times
• Headaches

Chronic sleep deprivation the symptoms are more severe and can cause long-term damage to your body including stroke, heart attack, high blood pressure, risk of developing diabetes, obesity, obstructive sleep apnea, lower immunity from diseases, lower pain tolerance, depression, anxiety, and it may also play a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. In extreme cases, it can cause conditions involving psychosis.

Symptoms of Inadequate Nutrition  

• Unexplained Fatigue
• Brittle and Dry Hair
• Ridged or Spoon-Shaped Nails
• Poor night vision and white growths on the eyes
• Cracking or inflammation at the corners of the mouth
• Chronic diarrhea
• Unexplained mood changes, especially apathy or irritability
• Lack of appetite

Learn more at reputable sites like WebMD, Healthline, and university medical center websites.

Symptoms You’re Not Drinking Enough Water  

• Thirst is the first symptom of mild dehydration.
• Headache
• Fatigue
• Dizziness, weakness, and lightheadedness
• Dry mouth and/or a cough
• High heart rate but low blood pressure
• Loss of appetite but maybe craving sugar
• Flushed (red) skin
• Swollen feet
• Muscle cramps
• Heat intolerance or chills
• Constipation
• Dark-colored urine (Your pee should be a pale, clear yellow.)
• Severe dehydration can lead to serious complications like electrolyte imbalances, heatstroke, kidney issues, shock, coma, and even death.

Symptoms You’re Not Getting Enough Exercise 

You will probably recognize many of these symptoms. 

• Joint stiffness
• Muscle Tightness
• Low energy - you feel sluggish and tired most of the time. 
• Trouble sleeping
• You are always out of breath
• Constipation
• Moodiness
• Forgetfulness and difficulty making decisions

Figure out what your body needs. Once you’ve met your physical needs, it’s time to check in with your mental and emotional health.

Mental & Emotional Health

Talk about complex! If you are experiencing a chronic or acute mental or emotional health issue, it may be what is causing your writer’s block. 

Stress may be the number one cause of a decline in your mental and emotional health. This is another multi-sourced symptom.

Whether chronic or temporary, physical conditions will cause stress. Maybe there are financial challenges that are your source of stress. Other sources of stress can include relationship issues, social or political events, lack of shelter or food or clothing, the illness or challenges a loved one faces, and your own body chemistry.

Good emotional and mental health means that you have at least one supportive relationship, regular self-care habits, and self- soothing tools for moments of increased stress. 

Self-care is proactive.

Self-care includes intentional thoughts and behaviors you do to take care of your mind, body, and soul. Some examples of self-care are regular medical checkups, eating nutritious foods, getting regular exercise.

Self-soothing is reactive.

Self-soothing includes thoughts and actions that get you through the moment. Often self-soothing is sense related: petting your four-legged friend (touch), smelling flowers (smell), listening to calming music or tones (hear), savoring your favorite foods (taste), or watching a sunset (sight).

If you have long periods of feel sad or depressed or if you are or have thoughts of harming yourself or any other feeling that concerns you, seek help. If you’re not sure it’s “worth” a doctor’s time

Call or Text 988 or

Visit the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline website.

They provide free and confidential support and resources for anyone needing help 24/7.

Care for Your Spirit

The word spirit refers to your inner self, your heart, and mind. I use that term instead of soul because so many people associate the soul with religion. Religion can be a part of your spiritual care, but it isn’t the whole. Spiritual self-care is about reconnecting and replenishing yourself. 

It is easy to become dispirited, discouraged, and too worn out. Many writers make the mistake of looking outside of themselves for the causes of being dispirited. They think they aren't good enough or have no talent. They think talented writers don't get blocked instead of considering that

Possible triggers for negative feelings:

• I got a bad review
• The agent I wanted rejected me with a form letter
• My writers’ group hated my story
• I’ve been trying for xx years and no one wants to buy my stories

Those are disheartening things to experience. They will trigger feelings of frustration, anger, depression, and/or dejection. Allow yourself to feel those feelings. They are natural reactions. But give yourself a time limit in minutes or hours, or even days. At the end of that time limit, pick yourself up with some spiritual care. What is spiritual care?

Be aware of your triggers and when negative feelings build. Figure out what is bringing you down. Once you know that, you will know what you need to lift your spirits again. It’s different for each of us.

Ways people find their inner peace 

• Music
• Meditation
• Art galleries or museums
• Time with family and friends
• Time with pets
• Time in nature
• Community service or activities
• Giving to others
• Bubble baths
• Swimming or other physical activity
• Poetry
• Working with your hands

One spirit-lifting tool could be a notebook of affirmations, of quotes you find inspirational, your positive reviews, your acceptances, copies of works you are especially proud of, or photographs of times when you felt like an accomplished writer.

Find the activities and places that restore your sense of wellbeing. That is taking care of your spirit.

Care for Your Creative Mind

Your creativity comes from inside you. Some speak of that place inside as a muse, others speak of a well, and still others speak of a second person/mind/soul/body. No matter how you refer to the writer you, your creative mind needs replenished from time to time. It’s more than your physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual needs. It is your inspiration and motivation to write. 

Unique to you, there is one or more way to refresh your creative you. Many of these things can be the same things that refill your spirit, but some may be specific to your creative side. 

The Three Rs

Perhaps your case of writer’s block is a sign you need to take time to rest, restore, and/or reconnect with your creative side.

Rest.

Stop thinking that because you cannot write what you think you should write right now, you can no longer write or be creative. Give yourself permission to rest for a specific time period. You will return to your writing space refreshed and ready to go to work again.

Restore your creativity.

Some people call this re-filling the well. Other call it feeding your creativity. Positive affirmations, reading, watching movies, visiting art galleries or museums, long walks in nature, and music are some things you can try. Remember that sometimes your growth as a writer changes what you need to consume in order to restore your creativity. Try new things. 

Reconnect to your creativity.

Stop thinking inspiration will come to you. Give yourself permission to write badly. Give yourself permission to just write for fun. Ask yourself a simple question and write whatever comes to you. Draw a four panel cartoon (no matter how poorly or well you draw). Give yourself permission to not get it right. 

Creativity needs exercise to grow strong.  The first time a gymnast walks into the gym, there’s no expectation of a perfect balance beam routine. Even a seasoned gymnast, one who has performed well in the past, has to put in the practice every day (or nearly every day.) Give yourself permission to write as many drafts as it takes. Take a class. Analyze a story you love or a story you think is poorly done. Read a how-to book or blog post (use the Writers in the Storm blog search box to find what speaks to you).

If you still feel you cannot write after taking care of your creative side, it’s time to look at what you are writing.

Examine Your Story

Stories are complicated. Sometimes, getting stuck means you’ve written something that has taken the story down the “wrong path.” In order to discover the problem, take a few steps backward, maybe even a lot of steps backward.

Ask yourself:

• Why is writing something you must do? 
• Why do you want to write this story? 
• Are writing something that doesn’t make your creative heart sing? 
• What would make your creative heart sing? 
• Is your story structure solid? 
• Are you telling the story from the right point of view?
• Have you made your character act in a way that doesn’t ring true?
• What event or action would hurt your character the most at this point in your story?

List five to ten answers for each of these questions. Most likely, that will free your creative side. If not, consider sharing your story with a trusted critique partner. Be open to how the feedback might help you see and fix problem areas.

Have Faith

Although the cause of writer’s block can be multi-layered, it isn’t a disease or permanent disability. It’s a symptom. Sometimes it takes a lot of work to get to the root cause. Other times you know what has you stressed or distracted. Many times you have no control over the stressors and distractions life throws at you. That’s okay. Have faith. Your writing, your creative side, is waiting for you, will wait for you to reconnect. 

What things do you do to take care of your creative side?

If you've experienced it, please share what helped you overcome writer's block.

About Lynette

Lynette M. Burrows is an author, blogger, creativity advocate, and Yorkie wrangler. She survived moving seventeen times between kindergarten and her high school graduation. This alone makes her uniquely qualified to write an adventure or two.

Her Fellowship series is a “chillingly realistic” alternate history in 1961 Fellowship America where autogyros fly and following the rules isn’t optional. Books one and two, My Soul to Keep, and  If I Should Die, are available everywhere books are sold online. Book three, And When I Wake, is scheduled to be published in late 2024.

Lynette lives in the land of OZ. She is a certifiable chocoholic and coffee lover. When she’s not blogging or writing or researching her next book, she avoids housework and plays with her two Yorkshire terriers. You can find Lynette online on Facebook or on her website.

by Miffie Seideman

It’s no secret that writers are increasingly relying on AI technology to generate queries, synopses, and even complete books, creating a controversy in the publishing industry. The technology is still unrefined, generating poorly written prose and stilted dialogue, absent the beauty of human story creation.

It’s even more concerning that AI generates information from pre-existing online content, often word for word and with no acknowledgement of (or consent from) the original author. For these, and other reasons, a number of literary agencies are already specifying that they will not consider any submissions generated by AI. 

But the internet remains a great wealth of knowledge and writers are turning to AI assistance to help with time-consuming research for stories.

So, what’s the problem with AI?

AI is still in its infancy. It’s terrible twos, to be more exact. AI is rapidly growing and learning, while still relying on very human programmers for direction and guidance. And by virtue of all that, it can (and does) make mistakes—some significant. For just a brief overview of recent AI-generated errors including recommendations to break the law and producing explicit imagery, check out this article by Aaron Drapkin and another by Danny Goodwin.

Writers unaware of the limitations of using AI for research risk creating an error-laden story that alienates readers and damages credibility. But writers can avoid these problems by understanding just a few key concepts:

• What AI can get wrong (and why)
• How to validate AI generated information

1. What AI can get wrong (and why):

The days of combing through volumes of bound encyclopedias, with content vetted by editors and specialists, have been replaced by internet searches. And most writers know that the information on the internet can be factual, opinion, biased, or completely fake. For a long time, simply checking the names of websites returned in a search could help writers hone in on factual sites.

However, over the last year, there have been rapid changes to the formatting of information provided through web searches. Have you noticed that AI-generated summaries of your queries automatically appear at the top of your search results? They look slightly different in various apps, but the overall effect is similar: the summaries look authoritative and are very easy (and tempting) to click.

But be careful, that information can be false:

Wrong information

Some information (reported) by AI is blatantly false. This can happen when AI misinterprets information it collects to compose summaries. For example, X’s chatbot Grok misunderstood an online conversation involving the term ‘throwing bricks’ (a basketball slang term for missed shots) and reported that a famous NBA player had vandalized another player’s home using bricks. And while this gave everyone a good laugh, what if the information had been taken as fact, magnified on social media, and resulted in fan retribution?

Incomplete or omitted Information

You might draw wrong conclusions if an AI summary leaves out information. This has been reported to occur in up to 75% of drug information queries using AI, prompting the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists to issue a warning that patient’s lives could be endangered by using AI-generated drug information.

My own test of both Google AI and Facebook’s Meta AI asking “what is kush?” (a slang term now used for three distinct illicit drugs) resulted in incomplete responses, some blending together information about all three drugs. Had I used that information, my blog post would have been very wrong.

Facts mingled with fiction, or please don’t glue your pizza!

AI uses information sourced from across the internet, but it can’t tell the difference between fact, false posts, satire, and jokes. Nor does it separate content from crowd-sourced information sites, like Reddit or Quora, from reputable sources. AI simply collects information on a topic and presents it.

The result?

AI has recommend using glue to hold cheese onto pizza and changing a car’s blinker fluid (which doesn’t actually exist).

Fabricated information and AI hallucinations

AI is simply programmed to complete a query task. Sometimes, like a two-year-old, it really just wants to give you an answer, even if it’s made up. In addition, poorly worded or leading queries can add to the odds of AI returning fake information.

Why?

Because AI doesn’t fact check your query wording, it just answers it. To test this, the University of Maryland library ran a query prompting AI to write an essay on Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, and his time at The Ohio State University. AI generated information on Jim Henson’s start in puppeteering at The Ohio State University and the impact of one of his OSU mentors, Dr. Richard Lederer.

Wouldn’t this information create a rich character background for a story? Maybe your MC ‘s entire life choice was influenced by working with Jim Henson on projects in Dr. Lederer’s class.

Sounds great, right?

There’s a problem. Jim Henson never attend The Ohio State University. And Dr. Lederer? Well, he doesn’t exist. The University of Maryland ultimately identified him as a ‘hallucination’ of ChatGPT.

Unintentional programming consequences

Computer programs only do what they’ve been programmed to do (at least, so far). And human programmers are…well, human. Program outcomes may not always be foreseen, as was the case of one intended to create more racial balance online. AI’s response was to reassign incorrect races to various historical figures. Imagine if you’d written an historical fiction novel based on that information?

References

With all the potential confusion, doesn’t is make sense to simply tell AI to only use accurate resources? Queries have attempted to do just that, asking for only peer-reviews references, for example. Unfortunately, even those references cited by AI, which looked quite professional, were completely fabricated.

2. How to validate AI-generated information

So, what’s a time-starved writer to do?

Even before AI-generated information was so prevalent, online information had to be considered with a certain amount of skepticism. When writing The Grim Reader, every drug fact I read on various websites, from how a drug is used to the symptoms a character could feel, had to be fact checked (and double checked!) via reliable resources.

But with AI-generated information, it may be a little trickier. Since AI pulls bits and pieces from various resources throughout the internet into its summary, the source of the information may not be obvious.    

Fortunately, simple steps have been developed by the University of Maryland for checking the credibility of AI generated information:

Prompt perfect:

What used to be a simple search question online has become a more complicated query that needs to be well crafted to avoid incorrect information. Covering all the tips for writing good queries would take an entire blog post, but writers can use this resource to get a good overview.

Fact checking:

Basically, anything that looks like a fact in the AI prompt response should be independently verified. Here’s a good short video on fact checking. In addition, Canada’s Centre for Digital Media Literacy has developed a program called “Break the Fake” to help internet users tell fact from fiction.

Scholarly reference check:

Those references AI credits for its summary may look nice, but are they real? As mentioned, AI sometimes fakes references. Here’s a great video on how to check those scholarly references to be sure you’re not writing more fiction than you intend!

Leave your bias at the door:

Unfortunately, AI-generated summaries can include biases from several sources:

• The way the prompt is written
• The author(s) of the information gathered
• The programmer of the computer.

At a minimum, writers should check a prompt for biased (or leading) wording and verify the reliability and credibility of sources being used.

Where do we go from here?

AI is continually growing and changing. What we know today about how it’s programmed and what to be aware of may completely change in the near future. Being aware of how to best use AI to get credible information and ideas for stories and characters can offer a powerful tool to writers. For the moment, AI is probably best thought of as a virtual assistant (in training) that needs oversight and verification.

Has this information helped you better understand how to use the power of AI to research story ideas? Has AI generated wrong information from your searches? Let us know in the comments.

About Miffie

Miffie Seideman has been a pharmacist for over 30 years, with a passion for helping others. Her research articles have appeared in professional pharmacy journals. Miffie blended her passion for pharmacy and her love of writing into THE GRIM READER: Putting Your Characters in Peril (A Pharmacist’s Guide For Authors),(Red Lightening Books, Indiana University Press). She’s represented by Amy Collins with Talcott Notch Literary Services.  

An avid triathlete, Miffie spends countless hours training in the arid deserts of Arizona, devising new plots for her upcoming fantasy love story. She can be found hanging around her website https://GrimReaders.com offering tips to writers and on X @MiffieSeideman…you know…tweeting. Contact her at info@grimreaders.com/

Picture attributes:

• Kermit: mdherren via Pixabay
• AI: GDJ via Pixabay
• Toddler: OPenClipArt-Vectus via Pixabay
• Detective: GraphicMam-Team via Pixabay
• Basketball player: Mohamed_hassan via Pixabay
• Cheese Pizza: Cheifyc via Pixabay

by Lisa Norman

One of the greatest delights of my business is working with authors, watching stories come to life, watching books come into existence.

Lately, I've been struck by how often we must wait as authors, and how often that waiting takes new authors by surprise. In my publishing business, I have a strict “no deadlines” rule, not because I don’t want books done quickly, but because deadlines can lead us to miss opportunities. It is too easy to rush and make mistakes. Once a book is in print, you can still change things, but it is no fun to have regrets.

One author I know is waiting for an editorial slot. She’s finished the book! She can’t wait for feedback and to start this next grand adventure. The editor can hopefully get to the book in three months.

Three months?

May be a bit longer. But they’re a fantastic editor, so they’re busy. In demand. Worth waiting for.

Except not everyone is willing to wait. And they go with someone with a shorter lead time… who may or may not be as skilled. We’re trading time for skill.

I was making an appointment with a fantastic cover artist for an author. They have a slot open in five months. I jumped to take it, even though the book is ready for a cover now. Why? Because if I don’t book, it’ll be a year before I get in with that artist. Sure, I could use another artist, but this artist has done the first three books, and changing style, a style that has been successful, would hurt the chances. I’m trading time for consistency.

A month ago, I signed up with a marketing firm and put down a chunk of change. My ads just started running. I can’t wait for the results. But I need to! Sure, I could manage the marketing myself, but this company comes with a great reputation. I’m trading time for expertise.

I’m working with an author who is waiting to hear back from an agent. Early comments from the agent have been very positive, and she’s got feelers out with some others in the industry. The waiting is murder. She could just self-publish. But she’s trading time for a chance at something bigger.

So much of what we do as writers involves waiting.

Recently, I worked with two different authors to resolve similar situations with Amazon. One decided the problem couldn’t be avoided and took a drastic measure: pulling down a bunch of books and putting them back up with new ISBNs. Why? Because that was the “only” way to resolve the problem. Meanwhile, slowly and patiently, I watched another author solve the same issue. We traded time and frustration for a better marketing stance.

When I talk to authors, my answer is usually, “take a deep breath and start the next book!” But I admit it, that can be hard!

Patience: the silent companion on every author’s journey.

Have you run into the waiting game in your writing career? Have you rushed something you wished you hadn’t? What do you do to help ease the stress of waiting?

About Lisa

Lisa Norman's passion has been writing since she could hold a pencil. While that is a cliché, she is unique in that her first novel was written on gum wrappers. As a young woman, she learned to program and discovered she has a talent for helping people and computers learn to work together and play nice. When she's not playing with her daughter, writing, or designing for the web, she can be found wandering the local beaches.

Lisa writes as Deleyna Marr and is the owner of Deleyna's Dynamic Designs, a web development company focused on helping writers, and Heart Ally Books, LLC, an indie publishing firm.

Interested in learning more from Lisa? Sign up for her newsletter or check out her classroom where she teaches social media, organization, technical skills, and marketing for authors!

Top image from Depositphotos.