Guest post: My foolproof hack to beating writer’s block

Leah Rowan on the trick that gave her MARION, the biggest idea of her career

Quick reminders before today’s excellent guest post!

• The Last Ferry Out, my queer, puzzle-box mystery set on an island with creepy ruins and stunning beaches and secretive expats, is out in paperback June 16! NPR's Fresh Air praised its "evocative writing and propulsive, intricate mystery," while Publishers Weekly called it a "stylish, serpentine thriller…pairing tender explorations of grief and homophobia with a series of horrifying twists." I’d be honored if you purchased a copy or requested it from your library.

• I have upcoming book events in Kalispell, Brooklyn, Minneapolis, the Hudson Valley, and more. I’d love to see you!

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That’s right, it’s a guest post! Because I don’t actually know everything, I’m excited to share from-the-trenches pieces by authors and publishing professionals. This must-read one is from Leah Rowan, whose unputdownable Psycho retelling, MARION, is out today. Enjoy!

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Writer’s block. We’ve seen it portrayed, in movies, in shows, in some of our favorite books about writers. We’ve lived it. We’ve stared, panicky, at a blank page. Watched the cursor blink metronomically, taunting. We’ve read articles on how to solve it (and yes, here I unironically present another one). We’ve done challenges to get us through it. If you’ve ever wanted to tell a story, chances are, there are times that you’ve felt impossibly, incredibly STUCK. And what then?

I used to say, hopefully not too smugly, that I didn’t really believe in it. That writing was a job like anything else, and just as you wouldn’t feel “blocked” enough to stop doing your job, say, building marketing decks or fixing leaky faucets, you shouldn’t simply quit writing, either, just because you’re not feeling it. And to a point, I still do believe that regular writing practice is the best prevention for getting stuck.

But still, at some point or another, it comes for us all—for me, it’s often when I’m trying to think of a new idea, when I’m trying to figure out what to write next.

Choosing to commit to a project is scary. If you’re a fiction writer seeking a traditional path to publishing, you know this is going to dominate anywhere from 3-5 (or more) years of your life, between ideation, drafting, revising, selling, editing, copy-editing, packaging, publishing. That’s longer than most celebrity relationships. That’s longer than your undergraduate studies. That’s about the length of my children’s lives. Wow. Is it any wonder we get nervous, our brain says, no no no, I cannot commit now, no thank you, we get, shall we say, blocked?

That’s where I found myself three winters ago. I’d written 5 YA books, 5 adult thrillers. My career was in stagnation. There had been highs and lows but none had really “worked,” not in a big breakout way, at least. I wasn’t sure how to write another domestic suspense, how I could spin a new web of twists and turns. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to.

I had stops and starts. I read about coming up with ideas. I did the tricks I’d learned in a creative writing course in college, saving unusual news articles, word association. I watched TV shows and then brainstormed ideas that were pretty much exactly the same as those TV shows, knowing full well that they were derivative. (Bad Sisters was big at the time; maybe I could write a book about women who kill a bad man their friend is stuck with together, but it’s college friends, not sisters … what a revelation!)

The crappy thing about being blocked is you start to beat yourself up. Other writers are so good at coming up with their ideas, they have drawers and digital desktops full of brilliance! You start to think, if I were a real writer, it wouldn’t actually be this difficult. You start to feel deeply that Stephen King would have had this solved by now. You know from reading Big Magic that both Elizabeth Gilbert and Ann Patchett were gifted from the writing gods the same idea at the same time. You know that if you were one of those people you wouldn’t have this problem.

A therapist once told me, when talking about interpersonal conflict, that when you take a “time out” it doesn’t really count as a time out if you go off in your corner and ruminate about all the ways you were wronged, or all the fear you have that you were in the wrong and that the other person won’t get over it. A true time out has to be a break from thinking about the conflict.

So here’s my hack. Give yourself a time out. A real one.

What does a time out look like for a writer? Pencils down, as they say during the SATs. No laptops. No notebooks. No Post-Its. No texts to your writing friends about how you need to think of your idea. Go a step further. Tell yourself you are absolutely, under no circumstances, to work on writing for a set period of time. It can be a day, a week, an hour, a month, a year. You know yourself, what you need, and what you’re comfortable with.

Fill the time you would spend writing (or staring at a blank page and self-flagellating) doing something that gives you no access to jot anything down. Long walks without your phone (or at least with it off). Yoga classes. A hike. Even a trip, if you can make that happen.

Capitalism tells us we must always be “productive,” even in rest. Well, screw that. Pick an amount of time, and choose to be anything but productive.

But here’s the catch: You are not allowed to ruminate about all the writing or ideating you need to do. You aren’t even allowed to talk about it. You will start to do it, but just like in meditation, once you realize it, acknowledge it, and move on.

And then, the other part. Forgive yourself. I know it sounds dramatic, but do it. Forgive yourself for not being as brilliant as you wanted. Forgive yourself for hitting the arbitrary writing goals you set for yourself at sixteen, twenty-six, thirty-six, sixty-six. Forgive yourself for being a human with flaws who sometimes gets blocked and fears they may never write again. Hell, even let yourself have that thought: “I may never write again.” And instead of reassuring yourself, just accept it. Sit with it. And then go on another walk.

All she wanted was a little Me Time… (Photo by Design _InDepth)

It was during this time of letting go that I decided to take a long shower. I have two young children so uninterrupted showers now feel like a luxury akin to a spa day. But the kids were in school, and instead of working out or putting in an extra load of laundry, I just decided to take a moment for myself. Instead of rushing through washing my hair, etc., so I could get onto the next thing, I was going to go slow.

I wasn’t three minutes in before it popped into my head. You know, that scene, the one that it feels like every woman who’s seen that movie thinks about occasionally when she’s in the shower. Norman effing Bates. I mean, how dare he, really. Marion Crane had had a hard day! She had just stolen money, she was trying to get to her emotionally unavailable boyfriend, she was on the run. Didn’t she deserve a few moments of peace? And then there he is, being a perv, spying on her, attacking her with his mommy issues and big-old knife. And I truly thought, LOL, if that actually happened, I’d try and knee the guy in the balls.

And then, my mind was spinning. Then I was thinking, well, what if he dropped the knife? Well, I’d grab it, of course. And then, I mean, if you’re standing there, fully naked, a knife in your hands. You have to stab, right? You’ve earned it at that point, haven’t you?

And then I thought, oh sh&t, this is an idea. This is a BIG idea.

My hair was still wet when I sent the email to my agent.

She wrote back minutes later, thrilled. Ecstatic. Telling me I had to write it.

And that turned into Marion, my modern feminist reimagining of Psycho where the leading lady doesn’t die but turns the knife on Norm, setting off a crime spree that turns her into a heroine for our times. It’s the book that Library Journal gave a starred review to, that Publisher’s Weekly called “a fiendishly clever feminist remix of Psycho.” It’s an Indie Next pick, a Library Reads selection, and a most anticipated book in Goodreads, People, SheReads, Buzzfeed, Time Out, Scary Mommy and more.

It releases today, and I’m so thrilled to share it with the world.

And I don’t think I would have gotten the idea if I hadn’t given myself a time out. I don’t think any of us get our big ideas, the ones our creative hearts are dying to write, unless we foster a space of care and forgiveness for the ups and downs of our careers, one that allows those big ideas to flourish.

Happy reading and happy writing!

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Giveaway!

Leah will send a signed copy of Marion to one lucky paid subscriber. (Contest open to those residing in the lower 48 states; enter by 11:59pm ET on Friday, June 5.)

AN INDIE NEXT PICK • A LIBRARY READS SELECTION • Named a Most Anticipated Book of Summer by Goodreads • People • Buzzfeed • SheReads • Scary Mommy

"A fiendishly clever feminist remix of Psycho. Rowan’s bold take on Hitchcock’s classic benefits from wicked humor, a well-rounded heroine fueled by righteous anger, and a breakneck pace." —Publishers Weekly

NORMAN WAS HER FIRST...

Marion is in deep. She's stolen money from the Manhattan ad agency where she works in a desperate bid to help her sister escape an abusive marriage, but the bus breaks down before she can make it to Saratoga Springs. It's late at night, and the only place with vacancies is an old set of cabins on the outskirts of town. She pays for a room in cash, and ends up chatting with Norm, the young innkeeper who's handsome, charming and a touch hung-up on his elderly mother. Back in her room, she steps into the shower, scrubbing off the late-summer heat, when the curtain is pulled back...

Norm Billings is there with a knife. He raises his arm to strike, but before he does, Marion knees him in the balls, grabs the knife, and stabs the life out of him. Now, she's covered in blood, and she's a woman on the run—not just a thief, but a killer, too. Where will she go? How will she save both herself and her sister? And what mysteries will she uncover as she does?

In Psycho, Hitchcock shocked audiences when he killed off his protagonist. But what if the leading lady had fought back? Marion offers an alternate history of the most famous dead blonde to ever grace the silver screen. Only this time, the knife is in her hands—and she's no victim.

To enter, comment #marion below.

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