How to Avoid (or Escape) a Writing Landslide

A writing landslide can be just as debilitating to a writer as writer's block, even though it has a completely different cause. In writer's block, you can't get started writing or you can't get very far because the words just won't come. In a writing landslide, you are overwhelmed with information, so much information that getting started is hard because you just don't know the best way to start.

One is like dying of thirst; the other is like drowning, but you're just as dead either way.

So what can you do?

I'm fighting my way out of a writing landslide right now.  I have a huge evaluation report due soon, and I have over 4 years' worth of data, notes, reports, and qualitative information to process, summarize, analyze, and describe.  The instructions from the funding source are not helpful. They use words like "thoroughly" and "in detail" while giving me an impossible page limitation and adding that data can also be placed in appendices. It's like a schizophrenic at a cafeteria saying, "Give me a lot, but not much, but more than that, but make it fit on this plate...OK, you can use more plates, but not many...." It doesn't help that my client is tapping her foot wondering why it's taking so long (imagine the cashier at the end of the cafeteria line waiting for my schizophrenic friend to get through the line). While deadline pressure can help get me moving, it doesn't make me think any more clearly, and that's what is needed in this situation.

The bigger the landslide, the harder it is to work your way through it because there are so many different points at which the massive amount of data or information can overtake you.  Here are my suggestions for escaping the landslide or avoiding it altogether: 

Make an outline.  I know.  This sounds so much like an English teacher, but the purpose of an outline is to help you organize your thoughts, and that's precisely what a writing landslide calls for. The outline will help you make sense of the big picture, so you can leave the big picture behind for awhile and move on to the next step.

Focus on one small piece or topic of the outline at a time. This helps you break that big landslide up into small piles of rocks that you can easily conquer. If the pieces are still too big for you, go back and make your outline more detailed until the pieces are manageable. I owe this trick to Mrs. Marbell, my senior English teacher in high school and the several debate coaches I had in high school and college. They all forced me to put a single argument, source or piece of evidence on a note card, then assemble the note cards as needed to fill in the outline  - before writing a word of narrative. I could visually see where the holes were and fill them in before I started writing.  When I was ready to write, the final product was very cohesive. 

Word processors have spoiled us.  We think, "I don't need to organize my thoughts first. I can just go back and correct and modify my writing later." Unfortunately, nothing is worse for dealing with a writing landslide than just jumping in because the landslide can turn to quicksand and envelop you pretty quickly that way. The typewriter days were a blessing in this respect.  Back then, the easier, softer way was to develop an outline first, and we all knew that. In fact, it only took me one experience of having to type the same paper over and over and over again to understand the value of a good outline.

Pick the easiest piece - and write. Once you have developed an outline and broken the monster into a bunch of small and manageable pieces, it's time to write. To avoid writer's block at this point (I know, it's just wrong that you could be dying of thirst and drowning at the same time, isn't it?), I suggest starting with the easiest piece you have, and getting something on paper.  This may not be the beginning.  In fact, for me, it never is. The easiest piece is the one you know the most about or the one you feel most comfortable writing about. Once you have this piece written, you have broken through the blank page, and now you can go to the beginning (or any other place you want) and move forward, one small section at a time.  Don't let yourself look at the big picture again until you have a draft to edit.  Until then, focus on the parts.

Pull it all together. This is a very important piece, especially if you have been working on separate pieces of a project over days or weeks or months (yes, I said months....welcome to my world). You need to read through a draft to make sure transitions are clear and that everything falls together like part of the same big picture.

When you see the writing landslide coming at you, or when you have been buried by it, it can seem overwhelming. Don't let it defeat you. It's all about your perspective. View it as the pile of rocks that it is and start to move them one at a time.

--------------------------------

Read more A Writer's Journey.

Need some good grant outlines to help you write?  Visit GrantOutline.com.