I never realized the totality of how much material and how many ideas I’d have to sort through when I began brainstorming “The Story” about 20 years ago. When I wrote “Novel 01,” I wrote it pretty much in a one-month’s bubble after a two-week prep period. For “Novel 02,” I have over 200 cited ideas so far, with each idea being of an acceptable quality. When I get to 1,000, I’ll make a new list, and keep grabbing ideas.

Major spoilers after the jump.

This diary of brainstorming is effectively the writer’s block killer.

I look at the idea of the writer’s block as having too much time in the “writer’s area” and not enough time having explored reality, at my worst, and at my best, I look at writer’s block as pushing yourself through mental or physical fatigue. If you have writer’s block, have you considered whether you’ve eaten or drank enough productive food and water? Have you bathed? Are your muscles sore? Is your mind overwhelmed with stupid things from work? Are you inundated with concerns over paying your rent money? Are you experiencing strife at work because people at work are at their worst in humanity because they don’t like being there and they don’t like being around others and they need you to feel the same way?

If so, how the heck can you write at all in your off-time?

There is no easy solution to that. My solution now is to put as low of impact as possible on my writing and mentality during my workdays where I commute into work. I will soon be commuting into work not as I will be working from home, which means I might get more time in the evenings or mornings, depending on my shift, to do recordings like this video where I can write my daily essay and think through some big or small ideas, and have to deal less with annoying people that I can’t physically part with because they sit in cubes near me. This sort of brainstorming is where you take a look at why you’re experiencing something negative like writer’s block or I suppose the opposite, let’s call it, “writer’s flood,” and you can’t maintain the proper amount of focus to achieve your writing goal.

That sucks but the thing is that this is all manageable without complaining.

The problem is that I think most writers want to use excuses that can apply in everyday life. If we can complain about a customer that’s annoying, then why can’t we complain that we’re spending hours writing to write the next great novel only to not so… why not say that the lack of inspiration was the problem? Why not say that instead of the truth: that maybe you don’t care enough about the characters, story, or setting to give that novel the time it needs to happen? It’s OK if you don’t feel inspired to write. Do something else. Make sure you’re physically and mentally well. Don’t force yourself into writing just for the sake of it. Don’t burn yourself out because you want to do something cool, and everything you’re trying isn’t cool.

Put together a diary for brainstorming and take notes around you.

That way you can reclaim the day, by having thought up of cool ideas during the workday when appropriate, on the commute to and from work, on breaks and lunches, and otherwise not wasting your life until you get to a point where you’re able to finally start writing, however, you’re too exhausted to come up with the inspiration that you could have received or stolen from reality. I can cite, and did during this video that I’m also writing this essay during, 70+ ideas I came up with over the course of less than a month, with 200+ ideas I came up with since I started working more seriously on “Novel 02” back in late April 2023, and these ideas are all fertile grounds for me to write for hours on end without stopping in a productive environment that will help me write “Novel 02.” Maybe each idea, individually, wouldn’t be hours-long worth of writing content, but in summary, they would. All of those ideas were either ones that just popped into my head or something that I experienced and noted with some adjacency to “Novel 02.”

That’s my trick to chiseling away at writer’s block, now go forth, and chisel away.