writers block

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve got to whip out a report on the Chinese stock markets, some rule changes this week, and tie it into an overall strategy piece showing clash between the government, stock market and good corporate governence.

Should be a piece of cake and take at most a couple of hours.

I’ve dicked around all day and don’t even have a page written. First, I sent the guy commissioning the piece a couple of pretty weak bullet points. He called this morning and suggested beefing it out with strategy. Then I had to take China bambina to see a nose specialist. She’s got a persistent runny nose and maybe has allergies like her mother. Screamed like a banshee as soon as we entered the doctors office. Embarrassing. The worst thing that happened was the doctor looked up her nose. China Bambina has really taken on a dislike of doctors.

By then it was lunch time. Got a call by my ex company saying they were ready to pay out on a court order (I sued for wrongful termination and ended up with a modest settlement). So, then I had to go over there and get my cash. Plus my ex boss then wanted to make small talk, and all I wanted to do was bitch slap him. Alright, and by a strange coincidence, the brokerage house I trade through is in the same building, so I went to get some data. Came back home and China Bambina was being fussy, so I took her for a walk and at the same time did a little shopping of important stuff like Tsingtao beer and milk. Now, it’s after dinner and I’m still not up to a page with no clear thoughts about how to whip this puppy out. I’m out of practice, should be able to whip this thing out in just 2-3 hours. First thing in the morning, before the rest of the household wakes up, I’ll suck down some espresso and see if I can pull my head out and finish this thing.

Anyhoo, I have no point.

2

I think you just need to come up with a good lead in.

How about “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times”? :slight_smile:

When this happens to me, it’s usually because I’m procrastinating. And that’s usually because I’m missing some piece of info I need to proceed.

3

I’ve always found the beginning is the worst part to start writing, particularly when I have writer’s block. I suggest making a rough sentence outline (no numbering, just a list of sentence fragments summarizing bits of your final paper in the rough order you want to cover them) and then fleshing out the middle bits until you get into the flow of things. Always works for me.

4

I had to do three small pieces of writing the other day (250-300 words). I already knew pretty much what I wanted to say for all of them, but I still didn’t know how to begin any of them. So I skipped that part completely. I’ve found that if I start with just the part that already flowed, the rest came to me during the time. All three pieces took maybe 2 1/2 hours tops and that including getting the screenshots and stuff and thinking of the captions I needed.

5

Used this lead in but don’t know if it will survive the edit. Thanks. I finally got off my butt and wrote the whole thing in under 3 hours and it should be on client desks first thing Monday morning. So, I don’t want to spoil it for any of the fund managers out there.

6

How about a title:

Yuan man’s stock market treasure is jiaother man’s crash