Last week, I asked readers what topics they'd like to see covered on this blog. Writer's block was among those topics, and, fortuitously, Daryl had already approached me with this post. Hope you enjoy it! Writer’s block can be described as having trouble moving forward with whatever it is you’re writing. It’s when you hover over the keyboard with your fingertips and nothing moves. The piece you’re writing is stuck. More importantly, you’re stuck. Why?
Because you’re lying to yourself. You’re trying to write what’s not natural. Trying to force something out that isn’t in you.
I want you to go back in time and remember when the words flowed. When the scene you were writing coursed through your fingertips. Nothing could stop you. Interruptions were annoying. You were in love with what you were doing.
What were you writing? What kind of writing was it? Fiction or non-fiction? What was it that got you so energized? How could you be in the zone at one point while writing, but now you suffer from writer’s block?
The difference; when your fingers were tossing the keyboard around, you were writing what was in your heart. The stuff that makes you a writer. You were writing your best material because you were so intimate about it.
Now, examine what you’re scribing when you get blocked. Are you in love with it? Do you feel it in your heart? Seriously, can you really say it is the same stuff?
If you sat down with the intention to write something, by choice, and you’ve got writer’s block, you have to choose something else to write. It isn’t in your heart to write that piece. If you force yourself and continue through it, the material won’t be top-grade stuff. It can’t be. Remember, your best stuff was when it flowed with ease.
This is a topic that almost every writer has had to deal with. Only the ones who are true to themselves deal with writer’s block less.
Any writer who has felt the full force of writer’s block knows how debilitating the feeling can be. It makes you feel that you can’t write. You can’t move forward. But that would be a lie, because you actually can write. What have you done so far? In other works you wrote some great stuff, which proves you can write. Here are a few suggestions to be rid of writer’s block;
1. Stop: write something else. Spend time writing in your journal or write a letter. Take a period of time away from the “stuck” stuff. Let things cool. Ruminate. Maybe come back to it, maybe not.
2. Stop completely; file that blocked stuff away and don’t return to it. Write what comes out easier. Write what empowers you. Listen to your inner voice (not the ones in your head-they can be scary) and write what you’re best at.
3. Change P.O.V.; get out of that characters head and get into someone else’s. Or change from 3rd person to 1st person, or vice versa.
4. Evaluate; why are you writing topics that stop you? Isn’t life too short to wasting time on things that you force out? Look at what motivates you. Is the struggle worth it? Figure it out and stop denying yourself. Stop lying to yourself.
You are too valuable to let this get you down. Think prosperous thoughts. Get past being stuck. Don’t quit, no matter what.
I once read that the greatest limitation is the fear of failure. Belief in failure is a way of poisoning the mind. When we store negative emotions we affect our physiology, our thinking process and our state. Writer’s block is a form of this.
Daryl Sedore has written two novels and over 40 short stories with all of them published in a cottage country magazine in Northern Ontario. Five short stories of his were in the top 60 in the Writer’s Digest 75 Annual Short Story Contest, with one of them placing 6th among 19,000 entries. He lives in British Columbia.
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Flickr photo courtesy of Jonno Witts