Stop Writing About Writing

When a writer has absolutely no ideas what to write about, they invariably write a story about a writer who has nothing to write about. I don't want to read this and neither does anybody else. For one thing, I already know what it's like to be a writer who has no ideas. But even for people who aren't writers, it still remains that nobody wants to read a story about somebody who can't get any work done and wallows in their misery and frustration. The only people who enjoy stories like that already wallow in their own misery and frustration.

If you can't come up with any ideas, I'll give you my sympathy, I might even offer my help, but I will not give you my readership. Don't try to repackage your failure and tell me it's success. Keep looking for ideas and working on them until you have something good.

Be warned that prose is not the only medium where this can happen. People make movies about people making a movie. And way too many people make comics about people making comics. I've lost count of how many times I've found a comic, read the first few strips, which are about a person who can't come up with any ideas for their comic, and then the comic itself stops updating and never starts again.

Don't let this happen to you. Get out of your head. Get out of your world. Write about something that has nothing to do with you. Do whatever you need to keep yourself from being bored or lazy with your writing.

If you absolutely must write a story about a writer, at least find a hook. A show like Castle is about a writer, but one who uses his abilities for other purposes. The show is not about him alone at his desk, staring at a blank word document. It's about him actually out and about, doing something with his life. That's a story I will follow.