Petrified on Page One: I know the story is supposed to have a hook, but that page one piece of paper terrifies me. How do I get started?

Writer's Block: The Big Freeze and What to do About it

Sex: Omigod, how do you write about that, er, stuff?

More Coming: Email your questions. Announcements re: new additions.

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Petrified on Page One

    Page one is a special kind of writer's block. The rest of the novel or story might even be completed, all the pages in a nice, neat little pile---all except for that opening page. And, why not? That first page carries a load of responsibility. That's the first thing your agent, the editor, or the slush pile reader is going to see. By the time their eyes reach the bottom of that first page, for good or ill, decisions that are not already made are at least under serious consideration.

    Everything depends on that first page, doesn't it? Success, your future, the car payment, the vindication for all the years of sitting around the house developing hemorrhoids instead of flipping burgers---love, life, death, PUBLICATION! If it's not done exactly right, I might as well end it all now! Right?

    Before you reach for the razor blades, understand that the one single thing that can trash your story and freeze up your opening is compulsively striving for perfection. It works like this: This page has to be perfect. Therefore I cannot settle for anything less than perfection. Perfection cannot be attained. Hence, I cannot proceed with the page. Ipso Jammo.

    Let's figure out how to relax.

    When I first learned how to downhill ski, the one thing I couldn't do was get off a chair lift without falling down. The instructor told me all I had to do was, at the proper time, stand up and physics would take care of the rest. But I was trying to skate away from the landing, pole away from that chair swinging around, duck, scramble, run, and almost every landing was a disaster.

    One time, after a particularly humiliating crash-and-burn at the chair lift, I decided to take fifteen minutes out and simply stand there and watch other skiers get off the chair lift. A little this, a little that, some concentrating, some seemingly paying no attention at all, dressed this way and that, but whatever their variations, all of those who successfully exited the chair lift did essentially the same thing: At the proper time, they simply stood up and let physics do the rest.

    The point of this mundane little tale? The next time you have first page jam, go to your shelf of favorite novels and stories (See Chapter 2 of The Write Stuff Online Writing Seminar) and one after another, read ten or fifteen openings. Then go write the same thing your own way. It works.

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Writer's Block: The Big Freeze and What to do About it

    Writer's Block is a form of literary paralysis that takes many forms: Sleeping late and going to bed early; fighting with co-workers or family members; drinking and drugging; watching television; playing video games; eating; gambling; rearranging the office; sex; remodeling the office; endlessly upgrading the web page; shopping; cooking; doing forever research, and my personal favorite: staring in despair at my PC monitor with its endless blank page and mentally beating the crap out of myself.

    Writing paralysis takes many other forms, but the primary symptom of this malady is always the same: Nothing is getting written. No words are appearing on either paper or PC.

    The secondary symptom of this disease is making excuses for the primary symptom:

    "I know what to do next, but I'm just not in the mood."

    "There are simply too many distractions around here!"

    "I'm too uptight. I just need to find a way to relax."

    "There are just some things I need to work out, first."

    "I really think I need to move out of the house."

    "I guess I just need to take a mental health day."

    And, to the cat sleeping on the sofa, "Do you have to keep making all that damned noise?!!"
. . . and so on.

    As the old Chinese proverb goes: The first step in escaping from a prison is to accept that one is in a prison."

    Okay, you have writer's block. You could spend the next five years in therapy to figure this out, or simply accept that your writer's block is a manifestation of your deep fear that:

    1. You might be crap
    2. That if you put words on paper, they will be crap
    3. If you send that crap to an editor, the editor will reject it as crap
    4. And then you will be crap, confirmed and revealed.

    As long as you never put down any words on paper, they will never be rejected, and you will never be exposed as the worthless little fraud you're afraid you are. Not only does this cripple your writing, it's a miserable way to live. Remember the words of John A. Shedd: "A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."

    Okay, so what do I do about it?

QUICK FIX

    Pick a word. Any word. Type it. Think up another word that goes with the first. Type the second word next to the first word. Then find a third word that goes with the first two, and so on. For example:

    I . . .
    I feel . . .
    I feel like . . .

    . . . and then just put them down, the words that describe your feelings. This isn't for editorial consideration, publication, or even your workshop buddies, or your significant other. Write them down for yourself. Judges work in courts, so don't judge anything. Tap those keys, let the words flow, and guess what? The writer's block is gone---for now.

LONG TERM FIX

    Get your head straight and get your writing program in tune with it. In other words, write your own stories your own way. If you do all of the homework in parts I and II of the Seminar, you will have direction, material, and enthusiasm. The only way you could be blocked is if you ran out of paper and your hard drive died.

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Sex, and omigod, how do you write about that, er, stuff?

    He looked at her, uh, thingy and ran his hand up her---no she *whew* well, she ... she ... sheesh!

    Stories are about people, people are about feelings, and the big ones are love and lust, which on occasion manifests themselves in sex.  Sometimes that sex is integral to the story (in other words, if I don't put a hot sex scene in right here, what happens next is not going to make any sense at all), so every now and then writers have to write about sex. Beginners as well as pros of many years have trouble with this, and the sociological and psychological reasons are legion. All of the inhibitions, whatever fancy labels they carry, boil down to the same thing: guilt.

    It is difficult for the creative juices to flow (so to speak) if you think you are doing something wrong. A young writer at home might be afraid that her mother might see it, or even worse, her kid brother. An older writer might be afraid his wife, or his daughter might see his hot copy, and long established pros I've know dread how other writers, readers, or reviewers will react to a heavy sex scene that was necessary to put into a story. I'll never forget my reaction when a young girl in college I knew revealed to me that she and some of her friends, while being driven from Portland, Maine up to Farmington, took turns reading out loud to each other the sex scenes in my novel, Sea of Glass. I knew the older woman who had been driving that car, and she has never looked at me the same way since.

    What to do? This is part of that self-discovery thing I keep harping on. If you are going to write about a sexual situation, you do it like any other situation, PLUS you use absolute rigorous honesty. Climb into that situation yourself, own up to the exact feelings you are feeling, then put them down. Affecting a style to make it sound erotic, cool, sophisticated, delicate, sleazy or whatever is how some attempt to avoid guilt by pretending to be someone---anyone---other than oneself. Do this if you want it to come out boring, or what's worse, unintentionally funny. If you are absolutely honest and writing from your own feelings, you cannot fail. What do you do about the guilt? Put it into the story. It's honest isn't it? Use it.

    What's honesty? Are you expressing yourself or attempting to put something over on the reader? The former is honest. I knew I was being honest in The Hangman's Son, when my sleuth, deep into a sexual situation with an incredibly beautiful and sexy woman, said to her, "You don't understand. Stuff like this never happens to me."

    What turns you on? What chills you out? What makes you want to charge like a bull? What makes you want to run and hide? Get into that bed, do what your feelings tell you is dangerous, exciting, and fits the story, and write it down at the same time.

    Do not write with fourteen censors, real or imagined, peeking over your shoulder. If you are worrying about how someone else will react to the words you are putting down, you never will find out how you will react to your own honest words.

    And for those whose object it is to write sex scenes for self-arousal, to be doing something "wicked," or to make "big bucks" in the porn world, go ahead. Get it out of your system (or, at least, relieve the pressure). Eventually you have to come down to the two biggies: 1. Does this scene serve the story? and, 2. Am I writing the best stories of which I am capable? You don't care?
    Be careful how you sling around those I-don't-cares. Those words are carved in the headstones of most failed writing careers.

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