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Three Techniques to Overcome Writer’s Block and Finish Your Book
I always feel a bit ungrateful when I whine to myself about what hard work writing is. There was a time before word processors and computers when writing involved typewriters. That any book-length manuscript was ever completed is a testament to the sheer will of the writers. However, there are probably just as many unnamed secretaries, girlfriends, and wives who made it happen too.
When I first fancied myself a writer this was really the only method. Produce a book-length manuscript on a typewriter or you were not really a writer. You could still write for a living, but you were a “poser” if you called yourself a writer. You were more of a journalist or an essayist.
To call yourself a writer, you had to have somehow used a typewriter to produce thousands of words without error. This was actually impossible. To make it slightly possible, there came into being, whiteout. It only worked for relatively small errors. God forbid you needed to move a paragraph or rearrange some sentences.
A relatively minor edit could cause a terrible domino effect when a sentence change pushed the content onto a new page. Unless this was the end of a chapter, you were forced to start retyping the manuscript to handle the shifting sentences. Goodness!
