7 Annoying Problems Only Writers Will Understand ...

Choosing a name for a main character should be easy, but it takes up hours of your time. You check websites meant for pregnant mothers, consult with others, and look up the meanings of different names. One of the problems only writers will understand is that, even if the character is minor, they need to have the perfect name. Actually writing out your story can wait, because you need to figure out if your protagonist is more of an Elizabeth or Ally.

You have the perfect story idea. In your mind, you’ve watched the scene play out a thousand times. However, when you actually get your pen out, you can’t seem to put your thoughts into words. You know exactly what you want to happen, and how it’ll happen, but you can’t figure out how to make it work on paper.

Just like names, it can take you hours to think of the right word for a particular sentence. You can search through the thesaurus, or stare blankly at the wall until you come up with it. Either way, you’re not able to move on until you finish that darn sentence. You could always come back to it later, but then it would be nagging at the back of your mind. It’s better to waste your time now so you feel better.

Writers fall in love with their work, which is problematic when it’s time to edit. You know the story would flow better if you deleted a certain section, but you can’t bear to part with it. You spent so much time on it, after all. Even if a scene does nothing to progress the story, and is sub par work, you really don’t want to let it go. You try to justify your reasons to keep it, but you know it should be gone.

You need to know your stuff. If you’re writing about a cop, you have to research police procedure. You head to Google to find out something simple, but soon you’re researching a totally different topic. One thing leads you to another until you forget all about what you were originally looking for. It’s important to do your research, but you have to know when you’ve found enough.

You have so many story ideas bumbling around in your head that you don’t know where to start. You write the first few paragraphs of one story, then decide you’d rather work on a different one. You can’t decide which one you really want to devote your time to, so you end up writing pieces of each one, but never finishing them.

This is the biggest problem of all. You want to write, but your brain refuses to think of an idea. Your mind is completely blank. Writer’s block is frustrating, and can ruin your motivation. It's one of the worst experiences ever, so you need to write as much as you can, even if you're blabbering on about nothing. Do whatever you can to get rid of that pesky writer's block.

As frustrating as writing can be, your hard work is always worth it. Do you love to write? What genre do you prefer?