How To Write When You Aren’t In The Mood (or Why I Don’t Believe in Writer’s Block)

You know that feeling when you just can’t be bothered? You stare at your laptop and you sigh.  You’re a third of the way into NaNoWriMo, several thousand words behind, and your novel is starting to feel like work. Your mind drifts off in search of new ideas or looking for some excuse not to write anything today. Don’t give in. Not now. Even Productive Procrastination will do you no favours during NaNoWriMo. Your goal is to generate a messy first draft and no form of procrastination is going to get the words on the page.

Be wary of calling this feeling ‘Writer’s Block’. Writer’s Block is not some magical affliction that strikes down promising young novelists. It's an excuse. It’s just easier to say ‘I have Writer's Block’ than it is to admit, even to yourself, that you don’t care enough about your writing to stay dedicated. And all fiction writers should be able to agree that the easy option is rarely the right one. You wouldn’t let your characters give up, would you? They persevere through the hard times – if they didn’t, you wouldn’t have much of a story to tell. So, if you won’t let them get away with it, why should you? You want to finish your story, don’t you? If so, the answer is simple, stop believing in the curse of Writer’s Block and accept that your disinterest in the story is probably something you can solve.

So what can you do?

There are a few tricks we can use to get ourselves out of these slumps.

How To Use Semicolons in Fiction Writing

Why do so many writers fear the semicolon? The poor, misunderstood semicolon? It isn’t its fault that it’s so widely misused. It didn’t ask for any of this. So, please spare a thought for this simple, uncomplicated punctuation mark…

Because it really is simple and it can transform your writing.

There is only one rule for using the semicolon to punctuate a sentence:

The clauses on either side of the semicolon must be able to exist as sentences in their own right.

That’s it. That’s the big scary rule…

For example, this sentence:

The man drove slowly across the bridge; it was raining and the road was slippery.

Could easily have been written as two sentences:

The man drove slowly across the bridge. It was raining and the road was slippery.

But there are articles about the correct use of semicolons all over the internet. So, instead of simply adding another one, I want to talk about how they can be of use to fiction writers.