i'm looking for help, i used to be a fairly prolific writer in my youth but now i'm afflicted with writer's block, i'm completely out of ideas, i have a short story that i'm working on, which may end up being hte first chapter of a much larger story, but it's like drawing blood from a stone. i recently completed my degree in english literature and film, and i can't help thinking that it really hasnt helped me develop as a writer, or, to put it another way, while i feel that being exposed to such a wide range of literature and literature theory will help in the long run, i need, to a certain extent, to (at least for the time being) try and un-learn a lot of it. This is because i feel that i am far more self conscious about my writing now than i have ever been before. I need to become more spontaneous, take risks and make those all important mistakes, without becoming so absorbed by the minutiae of writing that i go round in circles or (even worse) abandon projects half-finished because they seem to be too much like pale imitations of stuff that i've read elsewhere. i know that i've learned a lot about writing, and i'm sure it'll be useful if left to bubble through into my own work naturally, but i need to not worry about, or be aware of, it doing so. does that make sense? anyway, essentially i was hoping that some people on here might have suggestions for certain writing excersizes which help those in my position, people with writers block or people who wish to stimulate spontaneity in their work. does anyone have any ideas?
Writing prompts are what we usually use. One writing prompt a day keeps the brain going. Helps if you find a good team to prompt with. I have people on my facebook that will just shout out "Writing Prompt: Preztels" and we'll write about preztles and post if it turned out. More often than not, prompts leave you with a lot of crap but it forces you to write and that's the point. Most of the workshops we do at least starts with a writing prompt.
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