Rachel Thompson

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

John W. Mefford's #WriteTip on Coping With the Dreaded Blank Screen @JWMefford #Suspense

A blank screen morphs into a visual version of white noise. You begin to hear your heartbeat thumping, wondering if it will match the cadence of the blinking cursor. Before you know it, thirty minutes have drifted by, then an hour. You awake from your mental stupor and ponder how you can ever re-capture time wasted, your mind grasping for a coherent thought. Not just any coherent thought, but the next great sentence of the greatest novel in the twenty first century.
We’ve all been there. So, how do you cope with it?
Writer’s block. Okay, I said it. The elephant in the room. Honestly, I rarely use the term. Because I just don’t give in to suffering from it. Ever.
Why? For the most part—this is my own personal way of addressing life’s ups and downs—I think it’s more of a crutch. If I allowed myself to go there, I could find many excuses to not write. We’re not robots or a manufacturing plant. We’re eating, breathing, mind-straying humans, who, at times, can lose our focus, or our groove. That’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t pound your fist in frustration, or dig a trench in the floor from pacing yourself to death. It’s counter-productive.
For starters, I’m a believer that we’re all as unique as snowflakes. Many of us are writers in some form or fashion, while a few of us create in other ways, music, painting, sculpture. But we’re all going to respond to bumps in our journey to share our creative endeavors in different manners.
Back in the day, I cranked out story after story as a newspaper reporter. At times, I’d have no more than thirty minutes to whip out a twenty-inch story. Early on in my journalism career, I’d let the pressure get to me. Finally, in an attempt to free myself from the mental torture and inevitable stress, I thought through the deadline scenario while I was jogging one day. There was a correlation, I could see, to my running workouts. If I was tense, my breath was shortened, I’d have a miserable run, my time would suck and I simply wasn’t going to get better.
I learned to prepare myself for those deadline stories. I quickly understood that you perform your best when your mind is calm, free of clutter, and your body relaxed. Focused, yes, tense, not so much.
I realized I didn’t want to be my own worst enemy. Countless other things in life either purposely or coincidentally create hurdles for us to overcome. I was determined—and still am—to not let my mental psyche be on the enemy side of the ledger. In other words, I want my stride over the hurdle to be as smooth as I can make it. And I will make it. Every time.
Expressing your creative self is one of life’s greatest gifts. You deserve an honest, but encouraging signal from within your own mind. Be real, be productive. Be true to yourself. But if you have a brief period of time when you’re not feeling the mojo, don’t sweat it. Let confidence flow through your bloodstream, cut yourself a break and come back to it refreshed and ready to establish yourself as the greatest author of this decade. Just don’t blame…you know, it.

Behind the façade of every corporate takeover executives pull levers this way and that, squeezing the last profitable nickel out of the deal. But no one knows the true intent of every so-called merger. 

No one knows the secret bonds that exist. 

An Indian technology giant swallows up another private company that has deep roots in North Texas. For one unassuming man the thought of layoffs, of losing his own job to a bunch of arrogant assholes feels like a kick to the jewels. 

Until the day Michael’s life changes forever.   

Perverse alliances. An affair of the heart. A grisly murder. A spiraling string of events thrusts Michael into a life-or-death fight to save a tortured soul and hunt down a brutal killer…one who lurks closer than he ever imagined. 

Greed knows no boundaries.
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre – Suspense, Thriller
Rating – R
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