On Crimespace, Writer's Block, and The Dickens Challenge

If you don't know it, Crimespace, now boasting 1000+ members, is like Myspace for lovers of crime fiction. Recently members have engaged in a fierce debate on the subject of writer's block, ignited by blogger/author Erica Orloff who began a blog post on the subject with this quote:

"There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write." --Terry Pratchett

Clearly a tongue-in-cheek challenge from a much-loved humorist, one recently diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's.

On Crimespace, folks are divided in their opinion as to whether blocked writers should simply buck up (!) or whether, in the throes of burnout, stress, anxiety, or depression -- when they lose heart for writing -- recovery is not a mere matter of pulling themselves up by the bootstraps.

Because writing for software companies is my bread and butter, I've plugged away (sometimes grimly) for seventeen years in the face of occasional sickness, sadness, and stress. But when it comes to fiction, I'm on the fence in this debate. Because it seems to me that when writers take on new challenges, stretch higher than they've ever before reached, face impossible deadlines -- or when their standards of perfection are over-the-top -- they're bound to have lowered immunity for this condition. Having been there, I'm comforted to know that plenty of admirable writers (Hammett, for one) have been there as well.

The remedy for most seems to be to keep on writing no matter how awful the bunk you churn out. In the Crimespace debate, thriller author Timothy Hallinan said it well:

"Banishing the internal critics and writing material I don't like, for as long as it's necessary: dialogue that sounds like furniture talking, turns of plot that absolutely creak, they're so mechanical. Just putting one uninspired word after another."

I was intrigued by The Dickens Challenge that Hallinan suggested as cure. He says Mystery Dawg has volunteered to create a site for those who accept the challenge to post a chapter or other unit in serial form, committing to previously-posted chapters without going back and changing them. Check out the discussion on Hallinan's blog. His take is to do it for the joy of it, as an exercise in taking oneself less seriously.

I don't think I'm ready for this one (I'm forever editing my blog posts...isn't it maddening how blockquotes are followed by single spacing?) but those among us who are freshly lubed by Nanowrimo might want to try it.

-Lois