Writer’s Block sucks. I know that’s not a groundbreaking thought, but it’s as good a place to start this post as any.
It’s been top of mind for me, lately, with several folks on Twitter talking about how they’ve hated every letter they’ve put down or haven’t done anything but stare at a blank screen for two weeks. Soon after, I went from pounding out three short stories in the space of a week to staring at whitespace and hoping the next song on my chill-hop/lo-fi playlist might knock some cobwebs loose.
Part of the problem is that there isn’t one kind of Writer’s Block, any more than there’s one way to stop a river. Sometimes your brain runs out of ideas or those that do trickle out are boring and trite. Other times you hate every idea you have, or you’re stuck on a scene or character that you can’t get quite “right.” Or, as it happened to me, your prose blows and you suddenly feel as though you’ve taken an icepick to the language-processing part of your brain.
However it starts, anxiety and depression can quickly take hold. You flit from “bad idea” to “bad idea” without settling on any of them, rewrite the same sentence over and over again, or spiral out of control as your insecurities realize that now’s a perfect time to strike. One way or another, your self-confidence fades and, instead of asking “what should I write today,” some voice in your head asks: “Am I a fraud? Am I just bad at this? Did I lose whatever used to make me good?”
I can’t give you a panacea for all the different kinds of writer’s block, but if you come away from this article with anything let it be this: That voice is a lying bastard and you should never listen to it.
Ask anyone who’s been doing creative work for a long time: sometimes you have bad days, sometimes you have bad weeks, but that creative impulse is never gone for good.
In that case, how do you fix Writer’s Block? You can google solutions all day and every big-name writer has some of their own. There’s not a single idea here that some writer, somewhere, hasn’t already put to paper. Look up your favorite writer. I’m sure they’ve got a few tips. What I’m doing here isn’t saying anything new: it’s telling you what tricks have worked for me.
An easy place to start is to go out (or sit at home) and do nothing. Go on a walk without music, without thinking about work, without anything, and just let your mind wander. Take a hike. Get involved in something where your brain can let go and daydream. Aside from getting you away from your work long enough for your brain to reset, this can also give you a moment of much-needed freedom to re-light your creative fire.
Of course, sometimes the problem is that you’re out of creative material. Good stories don’t come from nothing; they’re fed by the experiences you have in life. As such, sometimes the best solution is to go out and live. Try something new, something outside of your comfort zone. Go somewhere you haven’t been, meet new people, get your brain inspired.
Inspiration also comes from reading for fun. Writers, especially, can feel pressured to read books they aren’t really passionate about. I, myself, plow through a book a week, and I guarantee you that a good chunk of them, while useful, don’t excite me. Taking time to read books you really love—no matter what those books are—can do a lot to bump up your creative energy and remind you why you’re doing this in the first place.
But, really, I think the best solution for Writer’s Block is much simpler. In fact, it’s a combination of traits that will feed into other parts of your life as well…
Be persistent, and be brave enough to suck.
None of us start good, and I doubt any of us get good for a long time. At first (especially when we’re young), that’s not really a problem. But as we get older and start caring about the quality of our work, our desire to write something exceptional can become petrifying. We become so obsessed with writing the perfect piece that we don’t finish our work or, sometimes, don’t start writing at all. For some reason, we forget that we can’t find the “right” way to do something without trying all the “wrong” ways.
Trust me on this: next time you’re writing, tell yourself that it’s okay to suck at what you’re doing. Remind yourself that the only way to get good is to write badly, and to write badly for a long time. Give yourself permission to be a bad writer so that you can keep writing long enough to get good. I first heard that advice from a speech or lecture given by Neil Gaiman, and it’s amazing how much it’s helped my writing. It frees you to start writing again, and put a lot of the fun back into it, even when you’re dealing with Writer’s Block.
When you pair that mentality with a stubborn persistence to write as often as possible and constantly improve, Writer’s Block suddenly seems like a non-issue. As I mentioned before, sometimes you have bad days, sometimes you have bad weeks. But, that’s all they are: they’re temporary. The energy’s never gone forever. As long as you’re willing to keep writing, keep working, and keep learning, even if it means writing a lot of total garbage, then you’ll eventually break through to the other side. Giving up is the only way it’ll ever fade for good.
So, please, keep writing. No matter how hard it seems, remember that there’s nothing Writer’s Block can do that a bit of stubbornness and a willingness to write badly and learn won’t fix.
