lost writing ability :(

ssallyg

I've lost my writing ability.. It's been gone nearly a year... what can I do?

Did you look behind the couch

ssallyg

ha ha no i'll give it a try though..

here.from.day.1

Any life affecting events occur around a year ago?

My own completely unprofessional advice though would be to try and read more often, and more varied, material to try inspire you and stimulate your imagination.

Memory Of 98

I have several means to get back into tip-top writing shape fast.

Firstly. If it had been a good length of time, I would read, read and re-read my old work to reignite the old spark.

Secondly. Don't expect too much too soon. Put some time aside for writing everyday and just see what happens, you have to get the rust off of the old engine.

Third. Inspiration, honestly, I listen to "Andante" by Mozart and I feel like I can take on the world afterwards.

Das Kitty

Tell yourself that it's okay if what you write is rubbish.

Self doubt can really mess with your head. By saying that, "It might be crap, but I'll write it anyway," you're freeing yourself from the expectation.

+1 on what others have said about reading, maybe try a new genre.

slavetothegrind

Get over to the arena and get back at it! I'm sure if you keep at it the majic will return

PurpleBee

I'm kind of the same, what I've started doing, instead of trying to write something finished with a message and all that tiresome crap that doesn't work when you have no inspiration, is exercises in combination.

I just take a page write out words that sound really nice or phrases in books around me, they don't even have to be words, just make up ones. Then I try to combine them into some kind of poetic thing. I find its easier for inspiration to be coaxed into an act of combination like that than trying to force it into an original act of creation.

Pixie Chief

I think everyone has suffered from this at some stage. I stopped writing for the better part of 10 years, due to all sorts of really crappy stuff going on that I won't bore you with. Two things really helped me. 1) doing a creative writing course. It meant I had paid money to do this and so was going to write no matter what and 2) I found an old book called No more rejections by Alice Orr. It really is a fantastic book. It goes through all of the elements of writing, mostly for fiction but applies elsewhere as well. Whenever I'm stuck, I start reading some section of it, doing some of the guided exercises and it gets me back up and running!:)

--Kaiser--

It's like a muscle, you have to exercise it or it atrophies

ssallyg

thanks everyone for your tips and ideas...they are very helpful...we'll see what happens

Qagyi

Happened to me last year. What I did was I took a trip to Thailand and just enjoyed everything that I can for a couple of weeks. It refreshed me and I was ready to write when I got back home.