Managing Writer's Block: A Guest Post & Giveaway by Chrystalla Thoma

 Azure 

by  Chrystalla Thoma

 New Adult Romance 

Available In: All Digital Formats

A terrible mistake haunts college student Olivia Spencer. To escape the past, she travels to the Mediterranean island of Crete, hoping for the courage to start anew.

By the sea, she meets sexy and enigmatic Kai. But there’s more to Kai than meets the eye — and nobody wants to talk about it. The locals shun him, accusing him of magic. Kai, apparently, belongs to the sea, no matter how crazy that sounds.

Kai isn’t free to be with her or live his own life, and this is how he will stay, unless Olivia can break his curse and save him — in doing so atoning for those she failed in the past.

Contains mature content. Ages 17+

Managing Writer's Block

by

Chystalla Thoma

I used to get blocked while writing, a lot. Didn’t know my ailment had a name until I joined a writers’ group about six years ago. Writer's Block. Sounds serious, maybe fatal.

It means you’re stuck in the writing of your story and can’t figure out how to go on, even if you’ve already written half the book, or even two-thirds. It’s annoying, frustrating, and sometimes very depressing.

I haven’t had Writer's Block in the past few years. And that’s because I figured out what Writer's Block really is.

It’s not a disease. It’s not the onset of Alzheimer’s. It doesn’t mean your creativity as a writer has dried up, that you’ll never get more good ideas for stories, that you can’t write anymore.

Trust me, because I thought all that and more. For years.

What Writer's block means is that you simply don't know what happens next in your story. It’s not a brain cramp: it’s a lack of concrete direction. It’s like driving down a road in the general direction of Alaska and half-way through you realize you don’t have a map and there are no sign posts.

Now what does that mean for you as a writer?

If you get Writer's block as soon as you start a story, it probably means you're not sure what the story is about. Write a brief outline, like a summary, of what will happen - by scene if you can. It could be only key-words (“Sue and John fight over dirty dishes. John leaves.”) Then sit down and write your story.

If Writer's block happens to you half-way through a story, again sit down and think of your outline, and each character’s goal. What do they want? How do their desires conflict? What do you want the outcome to be? How will you get that outcome? Take notes, make the outline as above, and then take it scene by scene, sit down and write it out.

Well, that’s my theory and that’s my cure. It sure works for me. :)

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About Chrystalla Thoma:

Chrystalla is Greek Cypriot (hence the strange name) and likes writing about bratty, angsty boys and spunky girls in fantasy and science-fiction worlds. She writes mainly for a young adult public but not only (heed the warnings!) 

She's currently preparing a non-fiction book about dragons, because the truth must out, and is juggling two series ("Elei's Chronicles" and "Boreal and John Grey").

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