I’ve been editing a short story for nearly three weeks and I’m stuck. When I was working on it the other day, I got so depressed I said, “I hate this. I never want to write short stories again. I never want to write fiction again. I suck at it too much.”
In other words, normal feelings when you have writer’s block.
Like so many writers, I am easily distracted by the internet. I’ll be writing away when I hit some kind of problem, and instead of sitting with the discomfort of the problem I shoot off and check my email, my facebook, my twitter account. Instead of wrestling with the difficult problem, I run off to find easy, mundane problems to solve.
Of course, this doesn’t work when you’re job is to solve those difficult problems.
What problems are you having writing shorting stories and getting them published? Where are you stuck? What are you having a hard time with?
This month, twenty-four writers submitted to our Summer Solstice writing contest. We only gave you a week to craft a story, and you responded beautifully. Thank you for trusting us with your stories, and that you for writing, for adding meaning to our lives and the lives of others. We hope you had fun doing it.
Now, to the winner.
To find your voice, you have to take on the voices of others.
For example, here’s a brief history lesson on copying.
Steven Pressfield, when he was first starting out, typed out pages and pages of Hemingway just to get a sense of his pacing, his storytelling, and his voice. He copied him to get into his head and understand how he constructed sentences, and how each sentence related to the ones around it.
