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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Right. It looks like we've got quite a few people joining us already. Welcome to this evenings. Webinar, for the Science Fiction writers. Week 2023 for priting aid. My name's Sarah from prioriting aid. And if you joined us earlier today, then welcome back. If it's your first webinar of the day, then welcome

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we've got many, many more sessions throughout the week, but this should be a very good end to what has been a great science fiction writers week already, so far.

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So

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: thank you for joining us. I'm just gonna open the chat so that I can see? Yeah. Me and my cat. Thank you. Katie. Yeah, I'm gonna have a cat in the background, probably for most of the evening. Unless my partner can like entice him to go upstairs. We might be joined by the other one at some point as well.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Okay. So I'm just going to read my notes so if you can see and hear me, I'm guessing most people can at least see me cause you can see my cat, but if you can hear me as well, if you can pop your name and location in the chat, that'd be great.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: I see people are. I feel like we've trained people to put their name and their location as soon as they join these webinars. It's it's quite fun to see where everyone's from. We can see New York, Michigan, Toronto, Italy.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Maryland!

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Kansas.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Canada! Quite a few from the States. By the sounds of things! I'm wondering if we're gonna see anybody from the Uk. I'm obviously based in the Uk. And it's quite late in the evening, so we'll see so before we get started, we just have a few housekeeping items. So I'm just gonna work through the slides.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: So in order to access the replays. So we always add replays to the Hub page. Once they're done processing by zoom. So sometimes they can take a long time. Sometimes they're really short. It's it's not in our hands, unfortunately, but we will add them genuinely as soon as they are possible. Replays are available for everyone for free up to a week after the event. So for this, until September 20 eighth. After this date, the replays are available for par writing Academy

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members only.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Your offer this week is 40% off an annual pro writing aid premium license which gives you access to all of the premium tools. So you've got all the comparisons you've got the integrations for scrivener, just so many, so many more features that we just keep adding to. So it's definitely a great offer for you at the moment.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: If you want to continue talking about Science fiction writing, we have our online writing community which you can join and log in using your prorating aid login and then you can keep chatting to all sorts of writers from not just Science Fiction writing, but any kind of genre. And we just talk about everything writing because we love it.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Okay. And then just some reminders for this session. Please use the QA. Box if you've got questions for our speaker, so I will be monitoring those as we go through, so please do drop them in whenever you think about it. And then, if you'd like to chat with the other viewers, please use the chat and then if you think if you see someone post a question in there that you think may be good for a. QA. Obviously feel free to add it yourself, or ask them to add it. I think that's a really good thing. I noticed that people were doing earlier.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: And then we're gonna have links to offers from speakers, and promo links that speakers have provided everything I will add into the chat, but you'll also be able to access them from the writers the Science Fiction writers, Weekhub.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: So with that housekeeping out the way. Now it's time for us to get started. So I'm gonna stop sharing my screen

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: and just run through who were joining this. So we're joined by Danny. I think I'm getting this. I need to get this right, Abernathy. I know we practiced it just a minute ago. But so Danny Abernathy is an enigma. Teacher and author, accelerator, book coach, who helps, novelists write the stories they need to tell, so their readers can feel seen and can see others specializing in fancy soft sci-fi and Ya

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Danny merges. How story works with how people work creating books that help. Readers have more empathy for themselves and others. I don't know whether she wants me to add this, but she is a Capricorn in Fj. And any ground type 4 who believes that stories can change the world, one reader at a time, and I completely agree.

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So over to you, darling, let's begin.

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Dani Abernathy: Thanks, Sarah. Hi! Everybody. Can you hear me?

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Dani Abernathy: Yes. Great. Okay. Wonderful. Okay, welcome. I'm gonna share my screen.

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Dani Abernathy: Let me know if you can see this.

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Dani Abernathy: We can see perfect. Okay.

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so welcome to the session breakthrough writers. Block find what's wrong. So you can get back to writing. You may notice that the subtitle of this is different from what's on the agenda, because I changed it so that's why

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Dani Abernathy: a little about me. Sarah already told you some of this. But I'm an author, accelerator, certified book coach. A book coach is like an editor who works with you while you write. So most editors come in at the end of the process. But I actually come in, preferably at the beginning. And, I help you figure out what you want your story to be so that you can write it in a way that works. I am an anyogram teacher. The anyogram is a personality student

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that I use in my coaching, and it really helps you.

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Dani Abernathy: Embrace yourself and write authentic characters. The enigma focuses on why we do what we do instead of just behaviors.

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Dani Abernathy: I'm the creator of the rooted, writes rooted writers, mentorship, which is a year long group writing program. It's lovely little community I live in Northwest Arkansas, in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Hi Sid, and

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Dani Abernathy: Fayetteville is amazing. We have an amazing library. If you ever come to Fayetteville, please go to the library. It is enormous. There are planes. There's a Deli. There's a coffee shop. It's beautiful.

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Dani Abernathy: I love books. Obviously I don't know why I keep that in this, because obviously I love books. I love rainy days and deep conversation, and I'm an Instagram for Inf. J. And Capricorn.

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Dani Abernathy: Here.

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Dani Abernathy: My mission is to help novelists write the stories they need to tell, so their readers can feel, seen, and can see others. I believe that stories can change the world, one reader at a time, because they teach us to have more compassion for ourselves and others.

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and I think that stories are one of our most powerful tools for having less war and more love. I don't know about you, but I think we could use some more love and some less war.

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Dani Abernathy: So my goals for today and any time that I teach are 3 things I want to help you embrace yourself as the most important part of your story.

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I want to give you actionable steps to implement right away. And I want to leave you feeling encouraged, energized, and connected.

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Dani Abernathy: Yeah, I find that a lot of writers are are in Fjs or infps or in Tj's

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today you're gonna learn the symptoms of writer's block.

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Dani Abernathy: You're just gonna discover the hierarchy of writers, blocks, assess your own blocks and then find tools to move beyond those you can get back to writing

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Dani Abernathy: before we dive in. I have a guide for you, and I'm putting the chat, the link in the chat. If you want to go grab that it's at Danny abernathy.com slash PWA. Block pro writing a block, or you can scan the QR code. So this block, this block.

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Dani Abernathy: I'm gonna say the word blocks so many times. Y'all, this guide

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Dani Abernathy:  has all the information from this presentation, but it's a little bit more actionable. So there's a checklist. There's spots to like fill in your answers.

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So if you

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Dani Abernathy: want that, go grab it, it'll come to your inbox, and then you can just click the link and say, File download.

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Dani Abernathy: This will also prevent you from having to write like, take furious notes. If you want to write down all the things. or you can take notes in the document itself as well. So I'm just gonna give you a minute to grab that.

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Dani Abernathy: Let me know. Once you guys start

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Dani Abernathy: having that available

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Dani Abernathy: silence on a webinar is always the best

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Dani Abernathy: grabbed perfect.

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Dani Abernathy: Yes, so you will be subscribed to my newsletter. Of course you can unsubscribe immediately if that is what you'd like to do. I do send out lots of helpful things, so like on Thursday, I'm sending out a writing tip on specificity next week. We're talking about finding a plot structure that works for you.

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Dani Abernathy: Okay, we're gonna move on. Let me know in the chat. If you have not attended one of my sessions before, like at a previous week.

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Dani Abernathy: If you've not attended, let me know. Okay. alright

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Dani Abernathy: good. Seems like we've got a lot of people. Okay. So I'm asking because I wanna introduce you to the story tree. And if you've seen one of my talks before, you are familiar with the story tree, so you guys can just chill out for a minute. But the story tree is how I think about writing. It's a process I use with my writers. And we're gonna talk about it today because it's the framework of how we're gonna think about writer's block.

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Dani Abernathy: So I think of story as a tree. We've got the leaves, the branches, the trunk, the roots, and this lovely little swing over here.

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Dani Abernathy: This is how I work with writers in developing.

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Dani Abernathy: Here's the link to the

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Dani Abernathy: the guide.

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Dani Abernathy: So I think of story as a tree. And when we are developing a story we start from the ground up. So phase one is about embracing your story, and we start with you the offer. You are the roots of your story. You are the most important part of your story, because everything grows from you.

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So that's obviously like your voice. The characters, the plot, the world. But it's also the meaning, the impact the perseverance to finish all of that comes from you. And so we need you to be connected to your book because you are the single irreplaceable element

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we want you to be connected to your story, to know why it's important to you and what you're trying to accomplish through it. So that's the first work I do with writers. And then, once we've got a really strong root system. We grow your tree trunk

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Dani Abernathy: and your tree trunk is made up of a few different things. It's your genre how you want to publish who you're writing to. But the most important element of your tree trunk is your point.

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and your point is what you want to say about the world. It's the message or the world view of your book.

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Dani Abernathy: So once we've got really strong foundation here in our roots and tree trunk, then we move on to phase 2 which is planning your story. So this is where we figure out your antagonist, your protagonist conflict, cast World Plot. If you're writing a series, we figure out the series.

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Dani Abernathy: And we do this work. Second, because it grows from who you are and what you want to say about the world.

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Dani Abernathy: I want you to notice the swing here. So this swing is where your reader sits. The reader. Hangs on the branch of your protagonist. I think the protagonist is the most important branch of your story, because it's how your reader experiences your story. So this swing is how we keep in mind our reader. We're always

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Dani Abernathy: writing with our impact in mind the impact you want to have on our reader.

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Dani Abernathy: And then phase 3 is actually writing or revising your manuscript. So that's where we actually do the writing. But we don't do that until we've done phase one and 2, because your story is too important to rush.

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Dani Abernathy: Your story is too important to rush. Tell me in the chat. If you've ever spent months or years, or hundreds of thousands of words writing a book only to realize

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Dani Abernathy: this does not work, and I need to start over.

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Dani Abernathy: Yes. yes.

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Dani Abernathy: me, too. Y'all. Yes, absolutely.

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Dani Abernathy: So. That is why we do. We grow our story tree from the ground up.

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Dani Abernathy: because we want the writing that we do to be purposeful and to be moving in the right direction, to be taking us where we want to go.

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Dani Abernathy: Okay, so we're gonna come back to the story tree later.

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Dani Abernathy: For now let's start talking about writer's block.

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Dani Abernathy: Okay?

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Dani Abernathy: So my approach to writer's block is a little different. This I assume different from everything you've heard about writer's block before. Maybe not. So I'll be curious to hear what you think.

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Dani Abernathy: So what is writer's block writer's block is the inability to engage with or progress in your writing. People obviously define writer's block in different ways, but I think of it as anything that prevents you from showing up for your story or moving forward in your story.

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Dani Abernathy: How do you know, if you have writer's block, there's a few different sort of symptoms of writer's block. The first one is stuckness.

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So this could mean that you're stuck on one scene like you just cannot get past a scene, or maybe one issue like the end of your book.

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Dani Abernathy: It could be that you can't start. You're just staring at the the horror of a blank page. It might mean that you can't get in the flow, and that writing feels like torture. You may feel totally overwhelmed, or even feel defeated.

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Dani Abernathy:  this is, I think stuckness is how we often think about writer's block when it comes to mind. At least, I imagine someone just staring at the computer, unable to type right? Or having a blank notebook in front of them.

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Dani Abernathy: These these symptoms of writer's block are symptoms of the illness. So they're not the problem itself.

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Dani Abernathy: I don't think that.

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Dani Abernathy: So I think these indicate a deeper problem which we're gonna get into in a minute.

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Dani Abernathy: So the next symptoms of writer's block are avoidance. So this might be cleaning the windows or binging like all of game of thrones, maybe reorganizing your closet, scrolling Instagram for hours gaming

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Dani Abernathy: and you may. You know people may ask about your writing, and you're just like I'm just so busy. I just I don't have any time, and sometimes we don't have time, but sometimes we just are choosing to spend our time on other things because we're avoiding. We're avoiding our writing.

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Dani Abernathy: Another symptom is productive procrastination. So avoidance is where you're like not writing at all, but productive procrastination is where you're doing things related to your writing that are not your writing.

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Dani Abernathy: So maybe you're making mood boards or playlists. Maybe you are just world building forever. You you only will build

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maybe you get feedback over and over and over and over and over, because you want to know, like all the things that are wrong before you move forward

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Dani Abernathy: you might get sucked into a research black hole.

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Dani Abernathy: and my favorite is procrast learning. So this is where you know you. You buy another course. You buy another book you listen to like, it'd be entire. Writing excuses podcast because you want to learn all the things before you feel like you're ready to start.

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Dani Abernathy: and then the last symptom of wriggers. Block is pro. Yes, attending pro writing Aids summits absolutely. And I mean, obviously, you. Still, you do need to learn, but it's easy to just never stop learning, so that you actually do the thing.

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Dani Abernathy: So perfectionism is the last symptom of writers blog. This can look like rewriting the same chapter over and over and over and over. Especially those beginning chapters. You tend to get stuck there because

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Dani Abernathy: Maybe we don't know what comes next. You might love line editing. So you just perfect sentences. Maybe you just wear out that Thesaurus tool on in pro writing aid.

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Dani Abernathy: you might find yourself putting off the next step, because you think that what you have isn't good enough, and it needs to be perfect before you move forward. or what I what I see with my clients sometimes. This actually came up last week is that you try to get everything right at once. So you're like, okay, I need to solve this problem. But then your brain is like, Oh, but we also need to solve this problem. And this problem in this problem and this problem. And you feel like you have to figure them all out at once.

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Dani Abernathy: which isn't really possible.

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So these are symptoms of writer's block. They indicate that you're dealing with some writer's block.

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Dani Abernathy: I want to talk, Jennifer. The slides will be available

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Dani Abernathy: tomorrow, I think, in the portal or whatever.

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Dani Abernathy: Okay, so let's talk about the hierarchy of writer's block. So there's 3 levels of writer's block. As I see it.

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story blocks

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Dani Abernathy: system blocks and personal blocks.

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Dani Abernathy: Story blocks. We're coming back to our story tree here. Story blocks are.

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Dani Abernathy: Oh, no. Where's my thing? Okay? So story blocks are.

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Dani Abernathy: The definition is not here. Story blocks are blocks related to your story. So it's like. what's the end? What's the scene? What's my character? Arc?

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Dani Abernathy: They are at the top layer of the tree they're the easiest to identify, because they have very clear. They present themselves very easily because they are about your story, and we usually have an idea that that block that we have a question we need to answer.

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Dani Abernathy: System blocks are what I think of as the tree trunk and the branches. And so these are problems in your approach to or support around your writing.

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Dani Abernathy: And then personal blocks are at the root level. And these are writing problems that stem from

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Dani Abernathy: your life like your traumas, your fears, your circumstances.

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Dani Abernathy: So these blocks grow from each other. These are a hierarchy, and I think you need to address

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Dani Abernathy: the deeper blocks before you can solve the higher blocks. So if you have a story block and you have a personal block.

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Dani Abernathy: I think you need to solve the personal block before you can solve the story block, because, just like your tree, your story tree grows from you, your writing process grows from Youtube. And so if you want to solve these story problems, sometimes we have to solve our own

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Dani Abernathy: stuff. I'm trying really hard not to swear. You guys, I don't know if it's appropriate we're here or not. Okay, let's look at story blocks.

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Dani Abernathy: So these are at the top of our tree. They're in some ways the least severe block. So they don't feel that way, because, you know, you're trying to figure out how to fit your whole story together. but these blocks are the easiest to identify as blocks, because they're obvious.

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Story blocks are unanswered questions about or underdeveloped elements of your story. So this is when you feel unclear about one or more elements of your story.

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Dani Abernathy: These are story specific. So it's not about like.

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Dani Abernathy: what is a character arc. It is. What is my character? Arc? So it's specific answers to your story.

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Dani Abernathy: Alright, you're you're all giving me permission to swear so.

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Dani Abernathy:  There are a few kinds of story blocks, unclear intention and underdeveloped story ideas.

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Dani Abernathy: So unclear intention is when your story isn't focused.

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So you might not be really sure what you're trying to say, what your story is really about.

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Dani Abernathy:  and

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Dani Abernathy: your story. When that happens, you it might feel like it feels unwieldy and unfocused, so you might find yourself trying to write too many things into your story, or find that, like the story, isn't really meaningful to you. I talked to a writer back in the spring who was working on a book

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Dani Abernathy: because their friends told them not to write a different book. and she realized she didn't want to be writing this book she was writing. She actually wanted to write the other one. She didn't care about this one, which was why she was struggling with it so much.

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Dani Abernathy: And you may find you're just uninspired because you're not excited about this idea. It's not. It's not focused. It's not clear.

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Dani Abernathy: Another story block is underdeveloped story elements. So this is when you don't know enough about aspects of your book. So this is where all of those like writing pieces come in. So what's the end? What happens in the middle? Where is the series going? You might have like an underwhelming conflict like. It's not enough conflict to really move the story forward. Often you have holes and logic like plot holes, character, motivation, world building.

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Dani Abernathy: It could also be that the elements aren't working together like. So they're not aligned. Maybe they're working against each other.

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Dani Abernathy: so tell me in the chat. If you are facing a story block of some sort. unclear intention or underdeveloped story ideas.

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Dani Abernathy: probably intention and conceptual misalignment

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Dani Abernathy: have to figure out one of my character arcs on a more detailed level under develop story ideas. Not really good, Mark. That's nice. No idea where my book 2 in the series, is supposed to go

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Dani Abernathy: have a huge block. More than a year and a half cannot figure out how to plot the entire story. Plotting is really hard. It's hard we protagonist

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Dani Abernathy: can't decide which way I want to go. Yep, yep. In the past I quit a novel because I'm not finding the real plot. Yes.

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Dani Abernathy: okay, so it sounds like lots of you are experiencing some kind of story block.

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Dani Abernathy: So remember, story blocks are story specific. Let me give you an example. So in one of the books that I was working on. A few years ago I had worked with a coach. I had planned out my whole book. I had a really solid outline that I was really excited about.

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Dani Abernathy: and I started writing. I was trucking along, and I got like halfway through, and I just got stuck on this one scene, and it was torture. I hated writing it. I could not figure it out.

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Dani Abernathy: and I was totally blocked.

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Dani Abernathy: and finally I realized that I was trying to force my characters to reach a plot event.

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Dani Abernathy: and and they wouldn't do it. It was misaligned with who they were.

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Dani Abernathy: so I was trying to force my characters to do something they wouldn't do, so I had to go back and like re-plot the rest of my book because it it wasn't going to work if I wanted to move forward. I had to fix those story elements.

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Dani Abernathy: So story blocks are the easiest to identify. They do take a lot of time and effort to solve.

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But

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Dani Abernathy: they're easier to solve if you address the the lower level blocks.

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Dani Abernathy: So let's talk about system blocks. These are structural blocks.

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Dani Abernathy: I like to think of them as the trunk and branches of your story. Without a system to build your story on. It's really hard. The story really

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Dani Abernathy: can't exist without a solid structure to rest on.

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Dani Abernathy: So system blocks are problems in your approach to or support around your writing. This could be lack of knowledge, lack of a process or isolation.

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Let's look at those in a little bit more detail.

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Dani Abernathy: So lack of knowledge is when you don't have the information you need to develop your story. So this may mean you don't understand a concept or how to apply it.

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Dani Abernathy: You might be unable to capture what's in your head like. You have all these ideas, and you just don't know how to make them get them out of your head onto the page. I also think writing craft issues fall into this area. So grammar show don't tell scene structure. Any of those writing craft issues, I think, are a lack of knowledge.

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Dani Abernathy: So this is where the theory comes in. So in the story elements, it was personal, specific story specific issues. And this is like theory, so you might

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Dani Abernathy: not understand what a character arc is in general. So you need to learn what a character arc is before you can then build your character. Arc.

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Dani Abernathy: I want to be clear that having this lack of knowledge block does not mean that you're not smart enough to finish your book. Okay, it just means you haven't learned a particular project.

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Dani Abernathy: not project. Concept.

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Dani Abernathy: Everyone has to learn to write. And so we all have to learn writing concepts as we grow as writers. And as we get further along in our book.

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let's talk about a lack of a process. This is when you have no writing system or system that just doesn't work for you so often.

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Dani Abernathy: If you don't have a process, you just have no idea what to do next, especially like when you get to revision. I don't know about you, but for me revision can be so overwhelming because it's like, Well, how do I fix? How do I know what the problems are, and how do I know how to fix them? How do I know if I'm making my story better or worse?

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Dani Abernathy: You may feel overwhelmed because there's just so many elements you need to keep in mind. You may feel like there's too many story options, or you're afraid of picking the wrong one. So a lot of my clients

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Dani Abernathy: especially if you have Adhd, you may find that your brain really you you can come up with so many ideas. That's one of your gifts is that you just generate ideas, but it's hard to to pick them and to know which one to follow.

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and then you may have a misaligned

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Dani Abernathy: system. So, for example, you may be a pancer. and it's not working for you, and you need to try plotting, or you may be using like a plot structure that is just not your favorite. You might be trying to write every day.

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Dani Abernathy: and maybe you're a cyclical writer. Maybe you write in cycles instead of daily.

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Dani Abernathy: and then the last system block is isolation. This is where you don't have the community. You need to move forward.

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Dani Abernathy: So you don't have any support, or feedback, or accountability or camaraderie.

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You might think that you're the only one who struggles with this particular problem. But I can tell you you're not.

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Dani Abernathy: All writers think they're terrible and hate their book and think they're not gonna be able to fix this problem at some point.

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Dani Abernathy: You may not have anyone to help you solve story problems so that could be like peers like other writers. And that could be also like someone who can give you editorial feedback, who knows more about how story works and can help you figure out if you're doing it right, and I use that in quotes

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Dani Abernathy: I often say to my clients, there is no right here. There's just what's right for your book.

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Dani Abernathy: If you don't have other. If you don't have a writing community, it's really easy to feel like no one cares. No one is invested in your story, and you're just alone in it. and you may also have lack of support in your real life. So that could be family, friends or community. They're just like.

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Dani Abernathy: why are you doing this? This is a stupid dream. Move on. This isn't worth your time or money or energy.

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Dani Abernathy: So tell me in the chat, if you're facing a system block. So lack of knowledge, lack of a process or isolation.

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Dani Abernathy: seeing lots of isolations. lack of a process. Oh, knowledge and lost my writing. Buddy, I'm sorry. Hannah.

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Dani Abernathy: lack of competence.

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Dani Abernathy: System block is more, exacting to oh, yeah, to the block, you have

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Dani Abernathy: isolation.

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Dani Abernathy:  lack of support.

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Dani Abernathy: Yeah.

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Dani Abernathy: So I hope one thing that you guys are taking from the chat is that the challenges you're facing

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Dani Abernathy: are not not unique, which I mean in the best way possible in that, like, you're not alone in it. You're not alone in it.

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Dani Abernathy: Imposter syndrome. Yeah. So let's get to imposter syndrome. Sophia. okay, so addressing system blocks. it's gonna more easily allow you to solve story blocks. So let me give you an example of one of

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Dani Abernathy: the writers in my community. The rooted writers mentorship. I'm going to call this writer Adrian. It's not their name, but that's what I'm going to call them. So Adrian had been working on their books for over a decade. They had had this this idea for this world like as a kid, and it was like their safe place. It was where they went to escape, and so they just it started as like fun and an escape for them. So they wrote 4 books in this series in this world, and the world just kept getting bigger.

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Dani Abernathy: and Adrian found themselves stuck on book for because they didn't know where things were going. They had. They had so many things happening, and they couldn't.

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Dani Abernathy: they couldn't find a path forward. Everything was just like a big explosion of like spaghetti. and

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Dani Abernathy: Adrian didn't have a process. They didn't have the knowledge they needed for some elements of story, and they had no community. They were totally alone. They were. They didn't know any other writers. They didn't have anyone to

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Dani Abernathy: to brainstorm with to help them solve story projects to help them be excited about their story. So Adrian joined the rooted writers mentorship in March, and since then they have been slowly figuring out what the hell they're trying to say and what the series is really about and what the most important elements are, so that they can

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Dani Abernathy: really think about this series with some sort of structure, and know where it's going, and know how to move forward.

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Dani Abernathy: And so it's been wonderful to watch Adrienne's pro process. It's it's not been like fast, because they have a lot. They have a decade of writing to sort through.

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Dani Abernathy: But Adrienne has the knowledge they need. They have

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Dani Abernathy: they have a process, and they have a community. They have people who are excited about their story, who are sharing their struggles. And they're not alone, and it's made a huge difference in their ability to move forward.

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Dani Abernathy: So when you have the knowledge, you need a plan and a community, you're going to be more able to work through these story-specific questions.

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Dani Abernathy: But it's gonna be difficult to address story blocks and system blocks if you have a personal block.

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Dani Abernathy: So personal blocks are route issues that are grounded in you, your life, your emotions, and your thoughts. Without.

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Dani Abernathy: with these system blocks here, it's going to affect everything higher up in the tree.

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Dani Abernathy: So personal blocks are writing problems that stem from your life, your traumas, fears, and circumstances.

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Dani Abernathy: There's a few. There's a variety of personal blocks you might be facing fear.

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Dani Abernathy: trauma, hopelessness.

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Dani Abernathy: and seasonality. There are likely other ones as well. But these are the 5 I chose to talk about today.

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Dani Abernathy: So let's look at fear. so fear is when the content of your writing or the process of the writing is scary. One kind of fear you might face the spirit of failure. So this is like that idea. If what if I'm not good enough? This is that imposter syndrome? It's this idea of like.

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Dani Abernathy: what if I can't do this? You know I spent all this time and energy and effort.

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Dani Abernathy: You might have even put your book out there, and you feel like it's not doing what you want.

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Dani Abernathy: Another way that we face fear of failure is because we have unacknowledged

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Dani Abernathy: like hopes built into our book. So one of the things I talk about with my writers is the impact we want our books to have on ourselves so often we are writing

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Dani Abernathy: because we want our books to fix something in us, in our or in our lives, like we want to be known, be seen, be admired.

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and so we might have this fear that that's not going to happen

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Dani Abernathy:  another fear that we face is fear of judgment. So this can

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Dani Abernathy: look like a lot of things. We might worry that people are, gonna see what we really think

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Dani Abernathy: through our books, or what really happened to us. If that can feel really vulnerable and exposing.

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We might worry that we're not a good enough writer, and so people are going to judge our writing ability.

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Dani Abernathy: We might worry that no one's gonna like it, like if people are just aren't gonna like the book. But let me tell you, if you write a good book.

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Dani Abernathy: someone is going to hit your book.

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Dani Abernathy: A good book is gonna be polarizing. Some people are gonna love it. And some people are gonna hate it. So if people don't like your book.

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Dani Abernathy: let me rephrase. If some people don't like your book, and some people love your book. then you've done a good job.

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Dani Abernathy: We can also sometimes feel shame, for, like the genre that we're writing the tropes, we're including the spice level of our books.

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Dani Abernathy: or even like for telling the truth.

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Dani Abernathy: we can also face fear of the unknown. So this is when you reach a new step in your writing process that you've never been to before. Or maybe you're you're encountering it in a new way, and your brain goes. Stop! This is dangerous. We've never been here before. We don't know what's gonna come. We need to go back to what we know do not move forward.

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Dani Abernathy: So your our brain does a really good job at protecting us from the unknown.

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Dani Abernathy: which means it's it's serving you well, but it can be problematic if you want to finish your book.

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Dani Abernathy: So let's look at trauma. Trauma happens when your book touches your wounds.

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This can look like

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Dani Abernathy: what your story is asking of you is hard. So maybe it's asking you to write about your own experiences to write honestly.

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And that's that's really hard. It takes a lot of courage to do that right.

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Dani Abernathy: Sometimes. We haven't healed enough to write about what the story is asking. Sometimes. We are going to be re-traumatized. We need more time. Or maybe we're not ever gonna be able to write about that thing.

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Dani Abernathy: It may be that you've never shared that experience before, and so even the thought of writing it is

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Dani Abernathy: just really hard.

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Dani Abernathy: And then, of course, we have all of these critical voices in our head that may stem from our past, you know. Maybe you had a teacher who told you were a terrible writer, or you were told your voice didn't matter to be quiet, to sit down to stop talking.

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I just felt myself go wrong. So

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Dani Abernathy: so those are all ways that our trauma may show up in our book, and those things can block us.

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Dani Abernathy: She talks too much. Yeah, okay, keep moving, Danny. Okay. So hopelessness. This is when you're writing seems pointless. So if you've been struggling to finish, if you've been struggling to find an agent or a publisher, if you've got negative feedback, or if you've published and you've got negative reviews, you may be like, what is the point of this?

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Dani Abernathy: I should stop writing. I'm not good enough. I should just quit.

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Dani Abernathy: and then the the last. Nope. This is not the last

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Dani Abernathy: life can also be a personal block. So this is when personal circumstances impede your progress. We all have lives. So we get busy. We have obligations, we have finances to deal with. You may be dealing with physical or mental health issues like, I have seasonal depression at weird seasons I have it in the spring. So in the spring I was depressed, and like not able to engage in life like I normally would.

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Dani Abernathy: you might be dealing with loss or transition, or even healing, because healing requires a lot of energy.

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Dani Abernathy: You may be facing oppression, or like world events are happening that are demanding a ton of energy just to make it through the day, and you may just be burned out on your writing.

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Dani Abernathy: you might just need a break.

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Dani Abernathy: and then the last personal block is seasonality. So this is when your book no longer serves you. Sometimes our our time with the book has just has ended.

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Dani Abernathy: so your season of life may have changed. Perhaps you started writing a book, and then you had kids. And now you're like, I don't want to write about that. I want to write about something else.

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Dani Abernathy: Or you had a

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Dani Abernathy: a really big life experience that changed your perspective on life.

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Dani Abernathy: You may have answered the question that you were writing to find out about. I write to answer my own questions. So a lot of sometimes I write a book. And I'm like, Oh, okay.

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Dani Abernathy: figured that out now. I'm not. I don't need to finish it.

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Dani Abernathy: You may have learned what you needed to from a book like writing skill wise. Maybe the book was really like the book you learned to write on, maybe happy with how far you've taken a story, or you want to focus on another project.

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Dani Abernathy: So tell me in the chat, if you're facing a personal block. Fear, trauma, hopelessness, life, seasonality.

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Dani Abernathy: all of them spoonies.

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Dani Abernathy: depression, fear, migraines, chronic illness.

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Dani Abernathy: Job.

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Dani Abernathy: yeah. Trauma at writing school.

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Dani Abernathy: All of them grief. Yeah.

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Dani Abernathy: Fear. Mostly. Backed by the rest. Yeah.

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Dani Abernathy: Death of my dad.

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Dani Abernathy: Yeah. Busyness. Thank you. All for sharing. Oh, you live on. Maui. Wow.

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Dani Abernathy: okay.

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Dani Abernathy: yeah. Personal, but not sure what it is, except I just can't get into the editing phase. Yeah, sometimes we don't know what it is, and it's hard. These personal blocks are hard to figure out, because they they do. They take a lot of self reflection. They can require therapy, you know, like it's hard to look inside.

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Dani Abernathy: But

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Dani Abernathy: it's gonna be difficult to stall these story problems or system blocks. If you've got personal blocks. So like, as you said, you can't figure out why you can't get into the editing phase. You're not gonna be able to just jump into the editing phase

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Dani Abernathy: which could be a system block or a story block, because something is happening in your brain that is like, no, we're not gonna do that. We're not gonna go there.

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Dani Abernathy: So you've gotta kind of address this hierarchy from the ground up. because your brain is sneaky and it knows how to divert you from engaging with things that feel dangerous.

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Let me tell you a story about one of my clients.

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Dani Abernathy: So when I call this client Jesse Jesse also had been working on their book for like 10 years, and it came from a very personal place in their life, and they needed to get the story right. It was very important to them to tell the story and to get it right. So Jesse had been working on their their phase one and 2, and they've come so far. Their story is amazing, and they've been outlining. But they just can't get the second half of their outline right. It just doesn't feel

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Dani Abernathy: complete to them. And so we were talking about this on a call the other day, and I kept

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Dani Abernathy: kind of like

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Dani Abernathy: suggesting things, and Jesse kept like bringing up all these other things

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Dani Abernathy: and I recognize that as resistance. And so finally we got to the the personal block, which was that Jesse was really afraid

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Dani Abernathy: of not being able to write the story.

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Dani Abernathy: and not

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Dani Abernathy: being able to finish that, they're they're not good enough that they can't figure it out

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Dani Abernathy: and so Jesse has to has to make

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Dani Abernathy: that place inside of him feels safe enough

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to engage with these other

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Dani Abernathy: questions that are coming up these other blocks.

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Dani Abernathy: Okay. let's talk about getting unblocked.

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Dani Abernathy: I feel like I'm talking about constipation here. Sorry for that. If you don't have the guide go grab it because it's got a checklist in there. You can actually do that while we're moving forward here.

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Dani Abernathy: Yeah, I guess I am

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Dani Abernathy: creative constipation. That's what we'll call this next time. Okay, step. One. Assess your block. So this is where you need to determine what level of like writer's block you're on. So this is a checklist. It is in the guide.

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Dani Abernathy: If you have your guide open, you can go through this right now and check off the ones that apply to you. So at the story level. I need to know more about one or more elements of my story

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Dani Abernathy: oops. If that is true, check it off

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Dani Abernathy: at the system. Level. I need to learn more about an aspect of writing or story.

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Dani Abernathy: I need to invite someone else into my story, or I need a plan for moving forward. If any of those are true.

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Dani Abernathy: check them off. and then at the personal level. I'm afraid of doing what my story is asking. My story is connecting to something painful in me. Life is making it difficult to show up for my story.

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Dani Abernathy: I feel like my writing will never make it into the world, it feels pointless.

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Dani Abernathy: and this story has served its purpose in my life.

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Dani Abernathy: So if any of those are true at any level. if you checked off any of those that means you have a block at that level.

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Dani Abernathy: If you checked off any of those that means you have a block at that level. All. you know, that's not uncommon

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Dani Abernathy: one and 2.

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Dani Abernathy: So I wanna remind you to start with the lowest block. So if you've got a personal block, you need to start with that block, even though it's hard as hell because personal blocks are scary.

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Dani Abernathy: You're probably not gonna be able to solve those higher level blocks without dealing with what's happening inside you. Okay? So there's no use trying to figure out a story level block. If your brain is too scared to engage with it.

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There's no use trying to force yourself to write if what you really need is to take a break and to not write for 6 months

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Dani Abernathy: food. Yeah.

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Dani Abernathy: don't. The personal is a lot, and sometimes it is too much. Sometimes we just don't have the capacity to deal with that stuff right now, and if that's the case

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Dani Abernathy: cool. you may need to.

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Dani Abernathy: I'm not gonna go there right now. That's a long conversation. Okay.

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Dani Abernathy: I want to say to you that there is no shame in having blocks.

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Dani Abernathy: You are exactly where you need to be in your writing process.

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Everyone has fear and doubt.

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Dani Abernathy: Everyone has to learn to write.

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Dani Abernathy: Everyone needs help.

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Dani Abernathy: Everyone has to figure out how the hell to make their story work. So be kind to yourself. You are not alone in what you're facing, and you can do this.

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Dani Abernathy: That so step 2, and getting unblocked is finding the path forward. So once you know what kind of block you're facing, you need to figure out how to remove it.

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Dani Abernathy: So ask yourself, what do you need to move forward?

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Dani Abernathy: So if you're facing story blocks. Usually what you need to do is stop writing and start planning or thinking. These are questions that I

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Dani Abernathy: find that writers often have. So these are just a list of like the common story blocks. So what are you trying to say through this book?

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Dani Abernathy: What's the conflict? How does the book end? What do your characters believe at the beginning and end? What are the rules of your world? Tech and magic

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Dani Abernathy:  system? Blocks are usually solved by getting help. So there's a few different ways that you can get help. You can get help from resources. So like books, podcast workshop, courses.

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Dani Abernathy: sci-fi writers, weeks, I want you to be watchful for procrast learning, because at some point you have enough information and you need to try to apply it.

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Dani Abernathy: Help can also look like community, so that could be beta readers, critique partners or writing groups. So this is your peers. This is other writers and readers who can

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give you feedback.

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Dani Abernathy: You may need to get help from experts. So this is an editor or a coach, or a publishing publishing consultant.

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or you may need help from support people in your life, friends, family, a therapist. I know that my writing has brought up

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Dani Abernathy: like I've talked about things from my writing a lot of times in therapy.

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Dani Abernathy: and then for personal blocks, the solution is usually to go inward. So ask yourself, what am I afraid of. and what do I need to move past the sphere.

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Dani Abernathy: Am I able to engage with this topic right now? You might not be able to. You might not emotionally be ready.

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Dani Abernathy: How can I support myself moving forward also? What support can I ask for from other people?

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Dani Abernathy: Can I approach the story with curiosity? In a sense, playfulness or experimentation. I think this is really helpful. If you struggle with perfectionism, fear of judgment,

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Dani Abernathy: imposter syndrome like, approach it as as an experiment, and with curiosity, and then what do I need to give myself permission to do?

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Dani Abernathy: You may need to give yourself permission to walk away. You may need to give yourself permission to tell the truth. you may need to give yourself permission to write a different book.

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Dani Abernathy: or to write a sex scene, or to not write a sex scene or to

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Dani Abernathy: put in a trope that you love.

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Dani Abernathy: Okay? So

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Dani Abernathy: you will face blocks at each level of the hierarchy at some point. It's inevitable.

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Dani Abernathy:  yeah.

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Dani Abernathy: yeah. So just be kind to yourself. Hopefully, this

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Dani Abernathy: webinar today just makes you more aware of when they come up. And so that you can know, especially as those personal blocks come up like, oh, there's something deeper happening here. This isn't just about

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Dani Abernathy: my midpoint. This is about my fear of my dad reading my book, or whatever.

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Dani Abernathy: So one thing I want you to know is that the rooted writers mentorship, which is my year Long group program

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Dani Abernathy: for finding, embracing and writing your book. We offer support for all levels of writers, block story system and personal. So if you're looking for kind of holistic support. I invite you to check out the routed writers mentorship on my website. It's a really lovely community.

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Dani Abernathy: And

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Dani Abernathy: yeah, check it out.

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Dani Abernathy: Okay, so tell me in the chat what is one step you're going to take to address your writer's block.

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Dani Abernathy: Find a group in my area.

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Dani Abernathy: good basket weaving underwater, find support, meditation to overcome fear.

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Dani Abernathy: going to figure out what I'm trying to say. Keep querying and keep writing, rejoin a local group.

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Dani Abernathy: give myself a random plot and mindlessly write about it.

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Dani Abernathy: find more support. So I'm not isolated. Find support

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Dani Abernathy: set aside time to brainstorm. Write that sex scene.

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Dani Abernathy: Yeah, thank you all for sharing.

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Dani Abernathy: Create a full plot. Do some world building

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Dani Abernathy: schedule time? Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of self reflection making time and finding

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Dani Abernathy: support. Check out the rooted writers. Mentorship.

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Dani Abernathy: Get over my fear of judgment. Figure out a working approach for writing sessions. Yeah.

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Dani Abernathy: okay, y'all. Thank you so much for coming. Let's stay connected. So I do have a quiz. It's called, find your untapped writing superpower.

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Dani Abernathy: It actually might help you. If you are facing system and story blocks. It might help you figure out your next steps. So it's at Danny abernathy.com slash quiz.

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Dani Abernathy: I am on Instagram at Danny Abernathy author. And then, of course, if you're interested in the mentorship, go check it out on my website. All right. We've got some time for questions. So let me stop my share here.

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Dani Abernathy: Sarah, can you?

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Yeah, II can have a look at the Q. And A for you. But I before I do. I just want to thank you so much for that. I go from the from the chat I've been reading all of everyone's lovely messages to you, and I think I want to second quite a lot of people to say that I feel seen

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: and I called out a little bit at the beginning. But I feel I feel like we've gone through some kind of emotional support group here. And yeah, I've got loads of ideas for how to get over my right as well. So thank you so much for that. Yeah, II have. I've picked out a few questions. I can see we've got some more coming in

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Dani Abernathy: now. But we might not have time for them, unfortunately. So we had a question from Chris. Saying, can you explain more? Being a cyclical writer? Yeah. So I'm a cyclical writer. I write in cycles so you could think of it like, it's a seasonal writer. So I tend to.

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Dani Abernathy: Ii

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Dani Abernathy: I set a goal, or I like, know what I need to work toward. And I do that thing, and I do that thing until it's done, and then I'm like, Oh, and I take a break for a while until the next phase. So that's that's kind of what I mean by that.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: I feel like I've totally just gone through that because I wrote like 50,000 words for a novel, and then put it away for like 2 years and then came back to I'm I'm in the mood to write this again, but all of this is rubbish. So I've just gone through a like replandel. And now I'm like, well, I'm done now. So yeah, II totally get that one. Okay.

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So the next one is from Ingrid. So it's saying, suppose the first draft is done. Is there a writers book for the editing process?

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Dani Abernathy: So I mean.

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Dani Abernathy: I think these blocks can come out at any point. Editing. I think it brings its own set of like overwhelm, especially so if you don't have a system in place. Editing can feel really overwhelming. So I find a lot of people come to me when they have written their first draft, and they're like. I have no idea what to do now. But I think all of these blocks can come up at any point in the writing process.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Maybe that's not helpful, ingrid. But and then I guess we just use all of the steps that you provided. At least they they they seem to apply to pretty much any, any block of the process. So I think that's great.

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Dani Abernathy: So another one I've got is if we ask suggestions and help for our plot where we're stuck from writers, community. So basically, if we're asking for support, and then we use those suggestions of the story, does that fall under plagiarism or copyright issues. So I'm not sure whether you fancy answers, yeah, I mean, I'm not really an expert in that. I mean, generally, ideas are not like

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Dani Abernathy: copyrightable. It's the words themselves. But

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Dani Abernathy: I'm definitely not an expert in that. So

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: okay. And then this one I found really interesting. So if you're writing multiple stories at the same time, can you be on different levels of story blocks? So this is from I'm I'm hoping I pronounce this right, Letish Letia and it, says she says II feel like I have different ones depending on what I'm writing, but it seems odd that a personal block won't. It wouldn't affect me in one story where it does another.

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Dani Abernathy: Yeah, I think you know, depending on what you're writing about, and where you are in the process, probably different topics.

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Dani Abernathy: different stages of writing are going to trigger personal blocks, for example, like, it may be that starting triggers. Some sort of personal block in you, or it may be like getting feedback is really like a vulnerable stage. So it makes sense to me that if you're working on multiple projects that are either about different things. So they're asking different things of you

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Dani Abernathy: like asking you to give different things to the story, or if you're at different places in your process, that you would be facing kind of different blocks in each in each one.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Yeah.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: I think I think that makes sense and it was Lisha. I wanna say, I think I think I'm pronouncing that right now. So let me just see if there's anything else. So those were the first ones that I found. Let's see.

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Dani Abernathy: So this one says, what if I'm afraid editing will ruin the story.

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Dani Abernathy: My editor made some observations I don't agree with, and I'm self censoring while writing. So this is something that we spend a lot of time in in the mentorship is like, what do you want this story to be about? What are you trying to say? What's your tree trunk? And what's the impact you want to have like, how do you want to speak to your writers?

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Dani Abernathy: Your readers? Rather, because when you know the answers to those questions, you know what to keep what to change. It gives you a guide for moving forward.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Yeah, I think that's really good. It's even when you've got something like a piece of software so like for writing aid, that turns around and says, Oh, this is, you've done this wrong, and it's like, but have I like, even on a sentence level. I think you know, you can end up having those inner editors like conflicting with an actual. I completely hear that kind of question. Ii think we probably got time for maybe one more. Let's have a look.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Here's a good one. What would you advise as a good method to turn off your internal editor to make better progress. On finishing a first draft.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: I would say, don't reread.

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Dani Abernathy: keep writing forward. Don't let yourself edit.

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Dani Abernathy: Just don't do it. Because if it's really hard for you to turn off that internal editor, the best.

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Dani Abernathy: the best way to avoid avoid kind of triggering. That part of your brain is to just keep moving forward and know. Remind yourself like I'm gonna fix these things later, I'm gonna fix these things later I will come back to them. I'm not a crappy writer. I'm just

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Dani Abernathy: doing. This is the first step.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: nothing else. Great bugs meal.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: Yeah, we're gonna have to try. And remember, I mean, I'm definitely gonna re-watch for this over and over and over again every time I have a box as as much as I'm gonna cringe at myself at the beginning. I'll just skip forward to when you start talking. Okay, well, that was such a great session. Thank you all for joining, and a big thank you to Danny for spending your time with us. This is like, I say, it feels like it's been like some kind of support group.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: I saw I saw a couple of messages in the chat that I wanted to call out which were Stacy, when you said what was writer's block. They said, my arch, Nemo Nemesis! And I heard that one and Joanna, who said, my tree is on fire. So I think all the different levels. Well, that doesn't sound good. No. So II thought II could

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: totally relate to that one. So as always, you'll find the reflate of the session and other sessions in the Science Fiction writers week help. And then I'm just gonna post all of the links in the chat right now.

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Sarah @ ProWritingAid: So there you go. Hopefully, everyone's got all those and we hope you join us for our next sessions tomorrow, and I'm sure will, and we'll ask Danny to come back and do all over again next right this week, so we could all get some more emotional support. But yeah, thank you all for joining us. And I'm gonna go to bed.