Some days words overflow like flood waters breaking banks. Those are the good days. Others, getting the word on the page can be like pulling teeth - teeth with potential but extracting them without anaesthetic comes at a cost. Then there are the days when all you are faced with is a blank page and no amount of tugging gets the words out of your head and onto the paper. It’s on those days that the phrase ‘writer’s block’ raises itself above the parapet and follows you around like a demanding toddler on a bad day.
Here’s the question though. Does writer’s block really exist or is it a mythical beast rolled out as a cautionary tale, an ill omen and bringer of doom to the work-in-progress?
I think it’s not up for debate that there are times when writing just isn’t working but applying a blanket term for this like ‘writer’s block’ is unhelpful at best. In fact, it actually causes more problems than it solves. So, if it’s not a literary Medusa, turning your inspiration to stone, what is it that prevents us from creating?
Everything happens for a reason - as a writer, you just need to work out which one applies to the problem at hand. There are really only three species of reason, which relate to either:
The environment you write in.
You as a writer.
The piece you are trying to write (or lack thereof).
If you’re stuck, try working through these in turn to work out where the issue lies.
number 1: for the love of the bearded dude in the sky, give me some space to write.
Your desk is tidy. Your stationery is well-stocked. You’ve installed yourself in your writing chair. So what’s the problem with your environment? Here’s the rub. The environment you write in is so much more than physical - it’s the landscape that surrounds you as an author, and it is always shifting. It includes your life, your health, your family and a myriad of other factors that take away your focus and sometimes make it impossible to see past the white page in front of you to the story that’s trying to get out. I wish I had a solution to this. In many ways, we are all a work-in-progress when it comes to prioritising writing. What I can do is share some of the strategies that have helped me.
Everyone’s day is 24 hours long. The devil is in the detail of how we fill it. There are huge portions of our day where we can’t exercise choice - everyone has immovable commitments like work and family. Very few of us have 24 hours filled with those kind of commitments, though. Early on in the process, I took an inventory of what I valued as an activity. Anything I do that isn’t writing, takes away from the time and space I have to write. If you are finding it hard to find the time and space to write, try making an honest note of how you spend these 24 hours over a week. Then be brutal. Look at what you can cull to free up hours to write. How long do you really spend on the Internet, for example, or checking social media? How many times do you play a game on your phone? Are you making the most of your lunch hour at work? Decide what you are willing to de-prioritise in order to re-prioritise writing.
Schedules and planners can be your friend. Give 10 minutes each night to planning out your schedule for the next day. Put time in to write and give it the importance you would any other activity or appointment. Stick to the plan. Start small and build that habit. Set timescales that you can achieve and hold yourself to them.
Re-frame writing as an oasis in times of need. Life has a habit of throwing things at you that shake you, scare you or shatter you. We can’t control that. I have no intention of minimising the effect of these and it’s very possible that there is something so massive in your life that you don’t feel that you can write. Writers need words like oxygen. I have written my way out of so many places in my lifetime. If you are trying to do that, consider what you are writing. It may be time to put the work-in-progress down and pick up a short piece that is what you need to write at the time. Do that without guilt.
Change your surroundings. Decide what you want to achieve and take a pen and notebook somewhere different to do it. Don’t leave until you’ve done it.
number 2: why did i ever think i had any writing talent?
Sometimes, you can have the perfect external environment to write but your internal environment is throwing a spanner in the works. As writers, we live in our own heads so much that sometimes we lose perspective and confidence in our abilities. This is one of the hardest hurdles to overcome because it isn’t easy to give yourself a stern talking to and mean it. So, how do we rebuild our writing confidence and silence that oftentimes loud voice inside telling us we just aren’t good enough?
Find your writing tribe. The one thing that I can guarantee you is that every writer, well-known or unknown, has stared down this demon at one time or another. The writing community at large is a really good support network to help you shout down the voice in your head. No-one understands this better than another writer. Tribes come in all shapes and sizes - digital, groups, courses and students. Finding like-minded writers can help break the cycle of self-doubt.
Read something you wrote that you love. Remind yourself that you can do it. Keep a folder of work that you like and come back to it like a life raft when you need a confidence boost. If people compliment your writing, keep those compliments and re-read them when it’s tough.
Find a critique partner and share work. Good critique is a skill and a good critique partner or group can save your sanity at times like these. You need to trust them to be an honest crit partner - in order to believe the compliments, you need to feel they are real.
Start small. Take a writing exercise and and write a paragraph. Edit the paragraph. Then put it down for the day and take that as a win.
Number 3: why is my work in progress out to get me?
You’ve done all of the above and it’s still not happening. It’s like your manuscript has suddenly turned into a sulky teenager and retreated to its room, slamming the door. We all know how hard talking to teenagers is - I have a nearly-teen so if anyone has worked out a solution to that, please let me know. You didn’t expect this of your manuscript, though. What gives?
If you’ve looked at the external and internal challenges to writing, and not found your solution, it’s time to ask if your work-in-progress is trying to tell you something. Often, you can’t write because something you haven’t yet identified isn’t working in your manuscript.
Has your plot lost momentum? The most frequent culprit for me is that I’ve lost the plot - this time in a literal sense. I’m a pantser not a plotter. I don’t have detailed files, endless Post-It notes. I write my plots into existence with the characters I’ve created. Sometimes, the beautiful finessing of the word on the page is hiding the fact that the plot isn’t doing what it should. Then I have to go back to basics and think about what I can do to bring momentum and purpose back to the work. No matter how wonderful the prose is, if it’s lost its way then you will run out of steam.
Are you boring yourself? If you are boring yourself, you may be boring your future readers, too. Is this story stalled because you have misjudged aspects like conflict or pacing? Be analytical.
Are you missing a structural element that ties the story together? I’ve been stalled on a book for a while now and I just couldn’t work out where the block was. I had to put it down and read other stories by different authors. I needed to give it attention by not paying attention to it. After a few weeks of immersion in the writing of others, I had an epiphany. What I wrote was fine but there was a whole additional story that needed to be told to knit it all together. There was a character that had been hanging in the shadows. I hadn’t seen her. She held the key to the structural lynch-pin. What is your structural lynch-pin?
the prosecution rests.
Ultimately, we are all individual writers so these techniques may not work for you in the same way. However, what they all have in common is the absence of a blanket idea that you are suffering from a common and contagious ailment, Writer’s Block. That implies that the situation is not human-made. It suggests that your productivity lies in the lap of the gods. I would argue that it is much more realistic to approach this as an issue with a root-cause you can affect. It may not factor in my list, but you absolutely have the capacity to identify what that cause is for your own circumstances. Information is power. Once you have named the thing, so you can vanquish it.
May the odds ever be in your favour.