Writer’s block; the one thing all writers dread. I too have felt its presence. Writer’s block can take many forms. From stopping you dead in your tracks, unable to write a single word on the page, to utter hatred of anything you write. My experience with it has not quite been to either extreme.
I have hit the wall where you are writing along and then the muse goes silent, not uttering another word to you. This silence begged the question, why is this happening? Why now? I struggled with it for a while, attempted to move beyond that point, but to no avail. Then I realized the truth. My subconscious, the source of my muse, had seen something I missed. Somewhere in the scene I had been working on, I had made a mistake in the writing. It had created a problem that grew with every word I wrote until it all came crashing down. The only way to fix the problem was to start again from the beginning of the scene. My muse took the cue and the words flowed through me onto the page. When I reached the point where I was previously blocked I flew right on past it without even noticing. I never looked back to find what changes I had made. It really doesn’t matter what the changes were, all that matters is that I found a way around my block.
Recently I’ve been suffering from the other end of the spectrum. I’ve been working on my latest novel, A Memory of Love. The words have been hard to come by at times and even when I find them, I find that I hate where I’m heading with them. It has taken me quite a while to figure out why this is happening in this book, but I have finally found the answer that was eluding me. I was writing without the back-story. In real life, everyone has a back-story of their life. It’s what gives their life depth and purpose. Our characters need back-stories as well or they end up dead on the page. After writing a novel, you think I would have learned this valuable lesson. Obviously, I haven’t. I’ve decided that the book can wait until my characters have a life of their own and only then will I be able to breathe true life into them. 

Not long ago I answered a question on Goodreads about what advise I would give to another writer just starting out. It made me think back to an event that occurred to me a few years ago. I had recently finished one of the earlier versions of A Love Beyond Time and had self published it on Amazon. I got a blogger to review the book. I was expecting to get an honest critic of my work. What I got instead was a scathing attack on my writing. I hadn’t had it professionally edited, but it is hard to get an editor when ones budget is virtually non existent. This blogger didn’t stop there. It came across to me that I should basically stop writing because I stunk at it. And then there was the offer to edit my work if I paid them to do it. Needless to say I was extremely angered and disheartened by this until someone gave me a piece of advice. Advice that I’m going to pass on to you. This advice doesn’t just apply to writing it applies to many things in life. And here’s my simple advice. When someone tells you that you’re not good enough at something say this to yourself. “Fuck’em, I’m good at this and I’m going to prove it. Not to show them that their wrong, but to show the whole world that I’m right.”
Now here’s the hard part. Now that you’ve said that to yourself you’ve got to do the work to prove that it’s true. You can’t just say it and magically have it happen. You have to work at it everyday and before long it will become true not just in your own hear and mind, but in reality as well.
After multiple rewrites that resulted in a single book growing into first a trilogy and then a quartet. And after two editors A Love Beyond Time is a published novel that has received multiple four and five star reviews. I proved the blogger wrong. My writing doesn’t stink and most of all I’ve proven to myself that I can persevere. That matters more to me than all the accolades.

Most writers will tell you that they listen to music when they write. They often pick songs that fit the scene that they are writing to help bring forth the emotions that their characters are feeling. Up until recently I tended to not listen to music while I was writing. I found that the lyrics were often too distracting. I'd lose focus on what I was working on and listen to the song lyrics instead. Sometimes silence can be a distraction in and of itself. I found that instrumentals don't distract me. They can actually help me focus my mind and as the tempo of a song increases I have found that so does the speed of my writing. Here are a few choice selections from my current play list. I will be expanding it over time to add more variety and bring in more pieces that evoke the emotions I want to convey in my writing. 

If you are a Halo fan you will recognize this one.

The Independence Day Soundtrack has good instrumentals.

The Lord of the Rings Soundtrack is another one that has great instrumentals.

Now my question to my fellow writers is what songs do you listen to while writing?

From my previous posts and my Pinterest page you know I like music. Every once in a while I find a song in a movie that such a great song that I instantly fall in love with it. Here are a few of those songs.

If I'm Not in Love With You by Faith Hill from the movie Chasing Liberty.

I Cross My Heart by George Strait from the movie Pure Country
For the most part I'm not a fan of country, but this one is an exceptional song.

I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You by Mark Anthony and Tina Arena from the movie The Mask of Zorro.

Battle Cry by Imagine Dragon from Transformers 4 Age of Extinction.

The Uprising by Pilothill from the movie The Darkest Day.

The World is Not Enough by Garbage from The World is Not Enough.

Iris by Goo Goo Dolls from the movie City of Angels

Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News from the movie Back the the Future. I know it's an old one, but it's still a good one.

For You by Keith Urban from the movie Act of Valor. This song is a fitting end to an absolutely amazing movie. If you haven't seen it then you should check it out.

I haven't done writing tips in a while so I thought I'd give you a few. 

For this blog I've decided to show you a little more about myself by letting you see my favorite songs by my favorite bands.

My Favorite Band right now is Within Temptation. My favorite song by them is off their Unforgiven Album and is titled Iron.

Here are a few choice selections off of Within Temptations latest album, Hydra

Here are some of my favorite romantic songs.

Over the next several days I will be adding a new board to my Pinterest Page of my other favorite bands and songs.

This Week's blog is an interview with Elena Michaelson, one of the characters from A Love Beyond Time.

I’m Dominique Sipika, this is the third and final in our series surrounding the recent events that have come to be known as the Lovers Quartet. I’m here with Elena Michaelson. She is one of the individuals involved in these unusual events. Ms. Michaelson would you care to tell our viewer about yourself.

I’m a physical education teacher at the local high school. I’m also the head volleyball coach.

You’re quite young to be a head coach aren’t you?

Yes I am. I believe I’m the youngest in the state. Before coming here I was a graduate assistant for the universities volleyball team. During my time at the university I was captain of the team during two of the three national championship seasons. But enough about me. From what I was told you wanted to hear about what’s been happening to my fellow EVA.

Eva what or who is that?

Oh, that’s a pet name our college residence adviser gave us years ago. It’s the combination of the first letter of our names; E for myself, V for Veronica and A for Ashley. It’s stuck with us ever since. Those two are like the sisters I never had growing up. I don’t know what I’d do without them. That’s why I’m so worried about Ashley.

Why is that?

That dream of hers is frightening, not just for what it’s doing to her physically, but emotionally as well.

Yes, I remember she didn’t look good when she came in for her interview. I only saw that one moment when she lost control.

That was not like her at all. Before all this began she was one of the happiest people I’ve ever know. Now I’m afraid for her. She’s my sister and there’s nothing I can do for her.

Why are you afraid?

I’m scared that I might lose her.

In my last interview Veronica intimated that all of this was in Ashley’s head. What do you think?

Veronica has her opinion and I’ve found that it is often wrong. I believe Ashley. Everything that is happening is real to her and that’s all that matters to me. I won’t dismiss it because it doesn’t fit in with what someone believes is normal or real.

I would love to continue our chat, but I’m afraid we’re out of time.