Having decided to jettison my shitty first draft of my first ever attempt at a novel, and start over with a revised plot and better-thought-out characters, I'm feeling a bit fed-up at the mo because I'm stuck, fairly big-time, on my character development, and don't feel as though I'm making progress.

However, I recently read Jonah Lehrer's "Imagine", which discusses evidence from experimental psychology & neuroscience concerning creativity and the evidence suggests that feeling miserable when you're stuck is a vital part of the process of creativity. If your brain hasn't really registered quite how stuck you are, it won't do the work (often in the background, when you're not thinking about the problem) of solving the problem.

The usefulness of knowing that is, of course, that you recognise your downer as a necessary part of the act of creation and not a sign that you're rubbish and should give up.

Just thought I'd mention it in case anyone else is in the same position! I'm confident I'll get there eventually.

I'm sure this is right, Toast. I always go through this misery between serials and although I should know by now that it will pass it doesn't make it any easier. I only really enjoy writing when I'm about one third of the way through something and then for a few days after I've written THE END. But then I guess some people are doing jobs where they don't really enjoy any of it. I absolutely hate the bit where I've finished one project, enjoyed the break of having nothing on the go but then start to tell myself it's time I came up with a new idea. A lot of people on this site have said that this is the best bit for them - the period when everything is a possibility. For me it's a period when I think NOTHING is a possibility.

Hi Jem - I think that infinite possibility, rather than limited possibility, is always a disaster. I think it's impossible to create without constraints, even if they're just the constraints of genre. Where everything is possible, nothing is possible.

Where everything is possible, nothing is possible.

True, dat!

Good to hear there's something positive about that wretched stuck feeling! It makes some sense too. I often find that feeling stuck comes just before a new idea I hadn't seen, or couldn't see before. It's like my brain is saying wait up a minute to give some time for inspiration to catch up. Don't think I'll ever like that feeling though!

Toast, thanks for posting this! I am completely lacking in creativity at the moment and I feel stuck, as you describe, and a bit edgy about it. On the one hand, I have the school holidays now as an excuse not to write (when normally I'm desperate for the time to write) to hoping that enforced time off will crank up the creative juices.

But it does feel miserable when it's not working - so it's good to know that it's all an essential part of the process!

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Actually, Jem, I was thinking about you this morning and how you got completely stuck for a while, and then suddenly a new idea came and you had a new serial written in double quick time!

I will sit and wait, and tend my allotment and my children, and wait to see what presents itself... but I like that thought of infinite possiblities. I could end up writing anything! Feel more cheerful already

I will sit and wait, and tend my allotment and my children, and wait to see what presents itself...

Unfortunately, Freebird, in the same book the author says that if you feel you don't have a dawning solution to your problem that's bubbling away and about to pop out, even if you have no idea what it is, the only way to make progress is to work on the problem. Sorry!

So I'm making myself work through various possibilities until I can get to something that I think is going to work - but that's because I know there's no tip-of-the-brain solution that I can feel itching away.

the author says that if you feel you don't have a dawning solution to your problem that's bubbling away and about to pop out, even if you have no idea what it is, the only way to make progress is to work on the problem. Sorry!

Yes, I agree that the best way to get through a period of stuckness is to keep writing something, if only to keep your writing 'fitness' up.

you mean there's no easy way to be a writer? (shock, horror!).....

LoL Freebird.

I've just read the Lehner book, and it was full of interesting stuff - an easy and engaging read, too. Recommended. Including, yes, the fact it is only by needling away at something that you give yourself even a chance of breaking through.

The usefulness of knowing that is, of course, that you recognise your downer as a necessary part of the act of creation and not a sign that you're rubbish and should give up.

Yes, and that being stuck is, actually, a sign of progress: you've reached the walls of the next stage...

I'm going to get this book and then I can hit myself on the head with it when I get stuck.

I'm going to get this book and then I can hit myself on the head with it when I get stuck.

I might just hit myself over the head. Repeatedly.

I was just listening to Saturday Live from last week. Grayson Perry was the guest. At one point he was talking about how success often 'constipates' him, because he can feel everyone looking over his shoulder. The host asked him what he did for 'prune juice', and Perry said he needs to relax, basically; so he drinks a few beers, watches The X Factor and doodles. On the same programme, they had a carpenter talking about his love of using a hand plane. He said that when all your tools are sharp, the work is easy, the plane seems to fly through the wood. So, I don't know, maybe a couple of clues there . . . relax more, whatever that means for you, and, um, keep your keyboard well oiled.

Thanks for posting this, Toast. I loved hearing that as I often have days when I just feel miserable with my stuckness (see what a wordsmith I am, right there ) and have often wondered whether really, they are part of the process and necessary.

I LOVE Grayson Perry. He is just fabulously intelligent and nice.