by: Shannon Redmon @shannon_redmon

The screen is white and my manuscript is due in a few weeks. I sit down, my cup of coffee steaming with caffeinated juice bound to fuel the final scenes my story needs. I settle into my chair, ready for words to flow. My fingers tap the keys, then delete the stray marks. I take a sip, burn my tongue then type a few more words and delete again. The cursor blinks and blinks and blinks while my brain blanks and blanks and blanks.

The diagnosis is clear. I’ve contracted the dreaded writer’s block.

Most authors at some point in their career struggle with this debilitating mind disorder. Either we write a scene and immediately deem the prose ridiculous or all our ideas seem to have taken a vacation to the Bermuda Triangle. If you find yourself in such an oblivion, there are a few things to help rejuvenate your creative mojo.

Pray

First and foremost, God is our creator. His imagination goes far beyond anything we could ever dream. When our ideas tank, we need to turn to him for worship, blessing and provision for the scenes He wants us to include in our stories. He called us to write and we can trust the eternal author of the number one best-selling book, to give us everything we need to put his words on paper.

Perform a mundane task.

I don’t know about you, but my house has never been cleaner than when I’m struggling with my story. There’s something about routine boredom that frees up our brains to venture into imagination land. When I can’t pull a scene together or even grasp one from thin air, I find other things to do. I might vacuum, do the dishes, or take a shower—anything that stops my brain from thinking about the current work in progress. Amazing how some of the best ideas pop up during monotonous tasks.

Talk to readers.

People who read hundreds of books a year are some of our best resources as authors. Readers love to interact with their favorite writers and often times are a wealth of information when it comes to new ideas. From jumping off train trestles (Mistaken Mountain Abduction) to finding a body in a cave (Cave of Secrets), these plot elements came from asking others what they’d like to see in a story. As long as the ideas line up with the market, I love collaborating with supportive and interesting people.

Watch the news.

As a suspense writer, the news is always chocked full of nuggets that can be turned into story plots. Many crime shows on television are ripped right from the headlines. Snippets of current events spark all kinds of stories. I often ask the ‘what if’ question to trigger fiction ideas from real news stories. For example, what if  a prominent South Carolina lawyer murdered his family for money? Or what if an IV league educated doctor earned millions by secretly funding a virus that killed Americans? Both of these sound like loglines for the latest Hollywood blockbuster and both are real stories that dominated the news cycle for a time.

Interview friends and family.

One of the best options for overcoming writer’s block is to call up family and friends for a long overdue conversation. We have so many interesting people in our lives who’ve lived adventures and tragedies, survived war and turmoil but sometimes life is busy and we forget to ask about others. Just the other day, while attending a funeral, I sat and talked with one of my husband’s cousins who I’ve known for years. She told me a tragic story of how her mother died when she was ten and her father gave her and her sibling to his sisters to raise. She not only lost her mother, but her father too, within a matter of six months. I never realized she’d been through so much tragedy as a young girl. People are interesting and can help spark ideas for our characters and our stories.

So next time your screen sits white and the cursor mocks you with its incessant blinking, maybe try shutting the blasted thing down and take a long overdue mind vacation to the Bermuda Triangle. 🙂

Shannon is a Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author and her greatest hope is for her stories to immerse readers into a world of suspense and escape while encouraging faith, hope, and love in Christ.  She has three books published by Harlequin’s Love Inspired Suspense line–Cave of Secrets, Secrets Left Behind and Mistaken Mountain Abduction. She is also one of the Managing Editors of Acquisitions for Spark Flash Fiction Magazine, where she received her first official published byline. Shannon is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube
Agency.