Writer’s Block

Imagine this sunny, halcyon picture. A beautiful person sits down gracefully at a desk with a sigh of relief, finally able to sit down and pour out their creativity. Taking a sip of deliciously somehow healthy coffee, their fingers are gently poised over their computer keys, or perhaps curled tightly around a pen. Time to write, the figure thinks. Reaching back into their brain, trying to discover those wisps of beauty and…

They’ve got nothing. Blank. Empty pages in empty brains. The wonder that you know perfectly well is in there is staying put in its hobbit hole. No adventures with ink today, thank you very much.

No one likes writer’s block. It is the bane of creativity, a giant chunk of concrete that refuses to move.

Yet without it, writing would be easy, wouldn’t it? Without that giant chunk of concrete, anyone could write a novel and it would take only as long as it takes to type it. And isn’t the feeling when you are no longer blocked the most wonderful thing in the world? You feel like you just punched through a stone wall with your bare hands. It may have taken a while and hurt a little bit, but you forced your way through stone. That’s pretty impressive.

That’s hard to remember when you are breaking your fingers on rocks, however, so here are some tips to not get the dreaded writer’s block.

#1: Don’t throw ANYTHING away

When you’ve written something truly terrible, you want to immediately toss it into a shredder and then incinerate it (and go into a three day creativity-induced coma), but you have to keep yourself from doing so. Someday you might look back and realize that that was the piece you needed…and it has been ashes for a while now. You can also look through your old notes to get inspiration.

#2: Take a break

Step away from your notebook or laptop and grab a glass of water. Get a change of scenery. Run a mile. Whatever works to get out of your stupor. Activity is good – don’t watch an episode of Downton Abbey, as much as I know you want to, and have your muscles start moving.

#3: Do something absolutely ridiculous

Make silly faces at yourself in the mirror. Toilet paper your face to look like a mummy. Drink grape juice in a wine glass and pretend you’re a French aristocrat (or real wine, but that won’t help your cognitive functions). Find gold in space whilst in your closet, I don’t care. It’ll help you relax and not be so stressed over that blank page.

#4: Music

Music helps. I prefer instrumental over ones with actual words in them because it helps me focus better, but you do whatever you like. I highly recommend John Williams and The Magic Orchestra.

#5: Read other things

I’m not attempting to encourage plagiarism here, but sometimes the right word combination in one written work can set off your own. Newspapers, magazines, novels, fairy tales. Doesn’t matter. The thing nearest to you that has words on it (no, not the toothpaste tube. That’s going a bit too far.)

*

Only eternity lasts forever (WHAT? Mind blow) so you can outlast writer’s block. Don’t let it win! It’ll come to you eventually.

Ironically, this post was born out of writer’s block, and it did indeed help. I should add that to the list.

#6: Write about writer’s block