I don’t mean just not writing, I mean wanting to write but being devoid of ideas. Here is my big question -
**
Does it really help to just sit down and write for a certain amount of time, whether it’s crap or not?
**
Yes.
And if I get stuck, I just repeat the last word I wrote over and over until something new pops up. That’s for general idea development, not actual text/finished version. Somtimes I’ve even started with that. Write ‘stuck’ enough times, and you’ll end up with images - stuck in mud, stuck in neverland, stuck in the eye with a stick… take one and run.
And read. Read read read read read. If anything tickles your brain (a ponder, a question, a place where you’d expect something different, etc.), go sit down and write.
When you’re really pissed off, write.
When you’re bored, write.
When you’ve got 15 minutes free, write.
If you have a dream, write it down.
If you saw something weird on the subway, write it down.
If you remember something funny or scary or peculiar from your childhood, write it down.
Doesn’t matter what it is, just write. The more I’ve written, the less crap comes out, and the more stuff is not crap. Some ideas that lept from the crap are waiting at the moment, sitting in intros and paragraphs and bits here and there. But if I don’t write, I don’t even get that much. If I don’t write them down, the good ideas fade, get filed mentally somewhere I can’t get to them, are forgotten. If I write crap, sometimes in the middle of it, I find a turn of phrase, or an idea, or a character that takes off and forms its own story… and off I go.
It hasn’t failed me yet.