Beautiful Lies Blog Tour: guest post

I'm excited to have the Beautiful Lies Blog Tour stopping by today with a guest post from author Jessica Warman...

TOP TEN WAYS TO FIGHT WRITER’S BLOCK

by Jessica Warman

10.  Tell yourself you’re just going to write for an hour, and then force yourself to sit down and do it.  Even if you spend the entire hour staring at a blank page, force yourself to be present and focused – not checking email or Facebook, etc.  More often than not, I’ll get so lost in my writing that I keep going long after the hour has passed.

9. Give yourself an assignment.  Write a poem for your significant other.  Write a letter (not an email) to a dear friend.  Try to write the best story you can in 1500 words or less.  Prompts are used in writing because they work.  

8. Read!  Let yourself get lost in a book.  Reminding yourself how powerful language can be is great inspiration. 

7. Stop pressuring yourself.  Some days, I spend so much time worrying about the fact that I’m not writing, that my worrying gets in the way of being able to write.  Give yourself permission to slack off sometimes.  Understand that some things cannot be forced.  On the other hand…

6. Find your balance.  Set realistic goals, and expect yourself to meet them.  Ask yourself if you’re procrastinating because the stars just aren’t aligning at the moment, or if you’re simply finding excuses to avoid the possibility of failure.   

5. Find a writing buddy, or join a writer’s group.  Knowing you’re expected to show up makes you accountable to someone other than yourself.  

4. If the idea of coming up with something entirely new seems too daunting, revisit an unfinished or unpolished draft.  You’d be surprised how helpful this can be, especially if it’s something you haven’t looked at for a long time.  

3. Complain to all of your friends about how you really want to write, but you’re having trouble.  Eventually, they’ll get so sick of hearing about it that someone will step up and tell you to quit whining and just do it.  They’ll probably continue by reminding you how “easy” their job is compared to your silly dream of writing stories for a living.  They will make you feel ashamed and embarrassed, but they will also be wrong.  Channel the energy generated by your shame and anger into a writing surge that eventually produces something amazing.  Get acclaim.  Bask in the superiority you feel toward your friend.  After all this happens, you will likely find yourself minus one or more friends.   

2. Make a deal with your best friend: If neither one of you is married by the time you’re forty, you’ll marry each other.  Wait – never mind.  Instead, take a writing class with your best friend.  Meet the person you’re destined to marry in the class, but don’t allow yourself to realize it until enough hijinks have ensued to provide sufficient material for a light-hearted romantic novel that might just be the beach read of the summer.

1. Don’t worry that your writing isn’t good enough.  Just start writing.  You can’t fix a blank page.    

Beautiful Lies

Rachel and Alice are an extremely rare kind of identical twins-so identical that even their aunt and uncle, whom they've lived with since their parents passed away, can't tell them apart. But the sisters are connected in a way that goes well beyond their surfaces: when one experiences pain, the other exhibits the exact same signs of distress. So when one twin mysteriously disappears, the other immediately knows something is wrong-especially when she starts experiencing serious physical traumas, despite the fact that nobody has touched her. As the search commences to find her sister, the twin left behind must rely on their intense bond to uncover the truth. But is there anyone around her she can trust, when everyone could be a suspect? And ultimately, can she even trust herself? 

Purchase: Amazon / B&N / Book Depository

Connect with Jessica Warman: Website / Goodreads

Jessica Warman is the author of Breathless, which received three starred reviews and was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and Where the Truth Lies. The idea for Between came from an incident in her childhood, when a local boy went missing after a party on a yacht (he was eventually found, alive).