“Writers write. Posers whine about how hard it is.”

So says John August (writer of Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Nines, and others).  I like August’s blog; he always has a sobering word for writers hanging out on the lower rungs. 

Writers get stuck.  Stephen King made it halfway through his first draft of The Stand and hit a wall, which he overcame a few weeks later.  That’s not writer’s block.  Real writer’s block cripples the writer with paralyzing anxiety.  Usually, when a writer invokes a block, they’re either “non-writers” as August calls them, or they’re ignoring the basic principles. 

Bodie Thoene tells a story of one of her first staff writing gigs, facing a deadline and an angry empty page.  Her editor only admonished her–what do they teach you people, he said.  Stick to the fundementals–who, what, when, where, why, how.  Thoene wrote her piece and handed it in with minutes to spare. 

Writers write.