insane writers block

[NoahtGreat]

This isn't so much a question as a complaint. I give you all the opportunity to complain in this thread. How sad that I use my first post for such pointlessness. However, I am suffering from the world's worst writers block at the moment. I used to write all the time. Then in the past year or so, it's all just dried up and I have no ideas. Nothing comes to me, nothing comes out. I have one idea that I can't get to go anywhere, even though (or because of the fact) that it's what I really want to be writing at the moment.

It's incredibly frustrating as I'm sure you all can imagine, and since it's been going on for quite some time I doubt it'll be going away anytime soon.

Has anyone else experienced the sudden and total inability to write anything or have any ideas?

Half an outline for a feature length script done, but the story won't finish itself... CURSES!

That's all. Thanks so much for being tortured artists with me.

-=Noah the Great=-

[miker]

Most projects worth watching go through a lengthy gestation period.

I find I can never write until my idea has enough legs, then it will walk away and write itself.

Just don't forget that you are a writer. Make notes either mentally or on paper of things going on around you that spark a reaction in you. Personally I go on the rule that if something is interesting then I will remember it, as something gets less interesting it will fade from memory and therefore from my repitoire of ideas/scenes that I draw upon for my writing.

You will be able to write when the time is right.

[eddie]

Hmmm, I think the solution to this sort of thing often comes through having a lost weekend. Go out and take you mind off it. Forget about it entirely, and get drunk and stoned in another town. Kip on a friends floor, go clubbing on a boat, watch other people, catch a bus across the country, do something else, talk shite for a couple of days with anyone who will listen, take your note book, just in case, but only with the casual intention of using it. Get your left brain talking to you again. Relax and enjoy other things. Go to Egypt. Go to a different pub and stay there for a few days. Meet other people. Join a juggling club. Anything other than writing.
You are probably too wrapped up in your story to see how good it is, woods and trees, get a different perspective.

[SouthWalesFilmClub]

The hardest part of writing a screenplay occurs during the second half - when you're working towards a good satisfying ending.

I'm having the same problems.

[exar kun]

I usualy have a lot of great ideas but then I start writing it down and suddenly the story is much shorter than I want and it's not that good anymore
I think we could become a great team


Greetings from eXarfilm

[johnny16mm]

Maybe you should just NOT WRITE

[johnny16mm]

Is it just me...Or is EVERYBODY a frickin' writer these days. You can't through a damn rock without it bouncing off of three directors and a writer. What's going on?

It's great that everybodies excited about making movies but JESUS CHRIST. Thanks be to Q. Tarantino for putting these false hopes into everyones hearts and now we have to endure hours of shitty indie films at every corner.

Ok, that statement there, is what the growing consensus seems to be. Everybody is putting out anything these days because it's so easy, and there's no quality whatsoever behind most of it and even less thought behind even more of it. I don't want to rain on a parade or be the ass, because nothing is further from the truth, but I'm not going to lie to anybody. You know that VHS-C 5 minute movie about your friend going to a party and getting attacked by a makeshift zombie you made last fall? Yeah you know what I'm talking about. Guess what, it sucked. But that's cool. Here's my point...

If you're finding it hard to actually write and you get a little ways and get bogged down and can't go any further...Then maybe it's just not your forte. It's OK to admit that writing isn't your thing. Writing is like Math, you're either Ok at it, you rock, or ou suck ass. I personally suck ass at math but got the writing part pretty much licked.

So in all fairness to everyone, if writing isn't your thing, please don't force it. There's a trillion people out there who CAN write proficiently, just find one, give them your idea and collaborate. This will cut down on some of the DIME A DOZEN, formulated, over-simplified, run-of-the-mill, films that are starting to pop up EVERYWHERE and give indie a bad name. Be original and don't be afraid to say "I fucking suck at this" and bring someone else in who doesn't. It'll save you some time, it'll save us some time away from watching the same kind of movie we've all seen from budding filmmakers a dozen times before, and it will save our industry some face in the long run.

Over and out,
J16MM



[This message has been edited by johnny16mm (edited February 24, 2001).]

[Red House Painter]

I decided to reply to this post becuase what you are saying in terms of writers block is down to progressive thinking. What am I talking about you say? I am studying at chelsea art college and what a lot of people don't realise is that an art degree does not teach you to draw a vase to look like a vase or an apple to look like an apple but teaches you how to look at your initial drawing and see what could be done to take the idea forward.

For example, you have an idea for a script/film whereby a man is hired as a private detective by someone to find a missing person. Prettty straight forward, but now turn it on it's head and decide that the private dick is in fact the man he is looking for. How? Well now we have to think of a reason which will in turn open up other possibilities. You decide that the missing guy took the private dicks soul 12 years ago in a ritual because he had sold his own soul to the devil in return for stardom. So why is the private investigator looking for himself? Because he has been denying that stole this other persoms soul and because the guy who hired him is the Devil and wants the debt paid.
By now you should have guessed that this is the plot of the book Falling Angel which was turned into the film Angel Heart.
it's a poor example but just by playing with ideas or sticking two plots together you will be given another idea.

When ever i am working on a film, piece of music or painting i will always know what i want to do next and constantly have ideas for my next piece.

[NoahtGreat]

I'm willing to admit that writing is not my forte. Sadly I'm not willing to stop writing.

I doubt I'll be giving indie films a bad name (unless I get around to making that "Experimental" short film... I think I'll post my idea for that next... hehe...). I also doubt I'll ever make this movie I'm trying to write.

It's more that I'd like to actually finish something and think, "Well, that's as good as that's going to get. Better do something else now."

(and as a side note, my group doesn't make zombie movies... though a zombie may make an appearance in our next completely random waste of video tape project)