Writer’s Block Is a Myth
Here’s how to overcome it
You probably think that my headline is blasphemy. How dare I so obnoxiously say that writer’s block is a myth when almost every writer has suffered from it at least once in their lives?
How could I say it’s a myth? Well, because it is, and I’ll tell you why. In fact, by the time I’m through, you’ll never experience a single writer’s block ever again. Instead, you will adopt something far more powerful that will transform your writing life forever.
Don’t believe me? Keep reading.
Before I dive into busting this myth, we need to know what writer’s block is. I’m sure you already know what it is, but let’s do it, anyway.
At the risk of sounding like a boring professor, here’s the Cambridge Dictionary’s definition: It is the condition of being unable to produce a written work because something in your mind prevents you from doing it.
In other words, it’s the creative slump writers face when they have no idea what to write. So yes, they channel their creativity into a staring contest with the dreaded blank page.
As a writer who has had my fair share of writer’s block, I agree that this feeling is real. What I disagree with, however, is how some people venerate it as some kind of untamed inner demon we must succumb to as soon as it manifests.
Perhaps it is apt to call it an inner demon. But it’s more of a demon puppet than anything. You hold the strings — you control it, not the other way around.
Writing is much an art as it is a craft. And like any craft, you show up to work, whether you’re feeling inspired or not. Imagine getting on the wrong side of the law only for your very competent lawyer to tell you they have lawyer’s block this week, so um, have a lovely time in prison, I guess.
Oh, you find that absurd? Now try applying this to every other career you can think of. Farmers with farmer’s block, firefighters with firefighter’s block, plumbers with plumber’s block, paramedics with paramedic’s block, bakers with baker’s block, and burglars with burglars block (not that burglary is a career).
That never happens.
Unless they have actual health concerns, these professionals show up to work every day and do their damn jobs. You too are a professional — even if you’re an amateur writer (quite contradictory, but sure, let’s go with it).
Writing is your profession, and your job is to write. What do you mean you can’t do your job today because you have writer’s block? I’m sorry, is that a migraine or something?
One may argue that all the other careers I mentioned above don’t demand the level of creativity we find in writing. “They could never know what it means to feel so uninspired that you simply cannot bring yourself to do any work,” they say.
That is simply not true. Even you can attest to that. A lot of writers have part-time or full-time jobs they do alongside writing. Some have no love for their jobs and would rather gouge their eyeballs and feed it to the birds than go to work. But what do they do? They go to work anyway. The same applies to everyone out there, even those who love their jobs.
I have been a teacher for many years, and while I am passionate about it, there were certain days I didn’t feel like going to class. No, it wasn’t because I was unwell or exhausted. I just didn’t want to do it because my mind said so. You could say that I had teacher’s block.
Did I act on this block? Hell no. I still went to class because it was my job and my students were counting on me. That’s exactly what your lawyer will do if you need legal advice, and that’s what you need to do for your readers and for yourself.
I agree that it’s harder for writers and other creative people to triumph over this feeling. But I believe this is so because many writers haven’t studied the root cause of writer’s block.
Once you understand the cause and know exactly how to deal with it, I promise that you won’t suffer from it again. Writer’s block will be a thing of the past. If you can’t write, it will be because you’re too sick to do so, and if you don’t write, it will be because you deliberately chose not to (a vacation, perhaps). It will have nothing to do with writer’s block.
Let’s get to work then, shall we?
What causes writer’s block?
It happens mainly because of two reasons:
1. When writers don’t know what to write because they lack ideas.
2. When they have no plan or outline to guide them in writing the ideas they have.
Solve these two problems and you’ll never have that empty feeling where all you do is stare at a white blank page for hours.
Train your mind to find ideas
Perhaps one of the major reasons why people stare at the blinking cursor of doom on that blank page is because they don’t know what to write. They have no ideas. And of course, if you have no ideas, you certainly will have nothing to write about.
Everything you will ever read in your lifetime is based on an idea someone had. If that idea hadn’t shown up, a lot of masterpieces would never have seen the light of day.
Ideas are your arsenal. Without them, you can’t conquer your writing goals.
How do you find ideas then?
They either come to you or you go looking for them.
Writers who are often afflicted by writer’s block usually wait for ideas to come to them in the form of inspiration. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, except that getting inspired is as frequent as rainfall in the Sahara. This is why some writers don’t feel like writing, because inspiration has not struck them yet.
On the other hand, when ideas come to them, they don’t recognize them because they’re disguised as something else other than inspiration, something far more mundane and boring. Before they know it, the idea is gone.
Other than honing your writing skills, one of the most important skills you need is the ability to find ideas. You should be in the business of idea hunting.
The oldest source of ideas is the human mind. Luckily, everybody has one.
According to a 2020 study, the average person has over 6000 thoughts per day. Yes, many of these thoughts seem irrelevant and chaotic. But certainly, there are gems hidden in the chaos. Train yourself to separate the gems from the chaff and then store them somewhere before they disappear.
I can’t tell you how many times I suddenly get an idea only to neglect to write it down, and then completely forget it. Sometimes it can be very painful when you don’t remember a very good idea you had. Have a small notepad with you at all times. If you prefer to use your phone, download a note-taking app. Hell, you may only have a piece of napkin. Whatever it is, just write down your ideas.
You’ll be somewhere minding your own business and the most intriguing ideas will just pop up in your mind. When that happens, record them immediately if you’re in the position to do so.
But you don’t have to only rely on your inner thoughts for ideas. The whole world is your reservoir. Ideas are all around us. It doesn’t matter if you write fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or Twitter posts. You’ll find ideas everywhere — cafes, markets, streets, the news, homes, hospital, strip clubs, everywhere.
It’s up to you to see them.
Think of your surrounding as your story and the people in it as your characters.
Every one of your characters is a protagonist in their own story — even the rude woman at the market who bumped into you and then told you to go fuck yourself.
If you write fiction, be in the habit of observing people. Come up with your own backstory about who you think they are. Do this by asking yourself questions. The more questions you answer, the more detailed your backstory gets.
With time, you’ll have enough ideas to develop into a story.
Note: The stories you create about people in real life should only stay in fiction. Don’t treat those people based on your preconceived notion of who you think they are.
What if you don’t write fiction? Perhaps you’re a blogger instead. Well, the principle remains the same. Borrow ideas from your experiences and then write them in a way that gives value to your readers.
For example, this post is based on my experience as someone who had writer’s block a lot. However, I have since learned to overcome it. So of course, as a blogger, I decided to share my experience to help other writers.
Ideas come to me every day. They are so many that I don’t even get to write down a large chunk of them. Yet I never run out. Which means, I always have something to write.
If you can find ideas, I believe you’ll have the same experience.
Create an outline
But what happens when you have so many ideas, and yet you still have a hard time fleshing them out into a full story?
I hear you. It happens.
Sometimes an idea so delicious can grip you to the extent that it’s all you can think about. Pumped with enthusiasm, you start turning it into a blog post, novel, or short story, only to stop cold in your tracks. You’re barely halfway through and you now have no idea how to proceed. That’s the time your muse decides to go on vacation.
Ah, damn writer’s block.
What do you do when that happens? Pretty simple, actually.
You need an outline. That’s it.
Most of our ideas are odd and haphazard and have no correlation to the thousands of other ideas we generate every day in our heads. Outlines help us to organize these ideas into coherent wholes to make sense of them.
As you brainstorm ideas, your outline will help you arrange them in order, so you know exactly what to write later. To put it simply, outlines are the blueprint of the story. It’s a general plan that is structured to show what exactly you have to write.
Some outlines are more detailed than others. No matter where you sit on the outlining spectrum — a plotter or a pantser — outlines are indispensable.
Here’s a quick practical example.
Let’s say you want to write a blog post about how people are sabotaging themselves. Start your outline with a headline. It’s important to have a headline first because it reminds you about the content of your post. Your headline should be as precise as possible, so there’s no doubt left in the reader’s mind. For simplicity’s sake, you may write something like this: Ten ways you’re sabotaging yourself.
Now’s the time to brainstorm ideas. You may start with a brief intro about what it means to sabotage one’s self and why people do it anyway, even though it affects them negatively.
But your post is about the ten things people are doing to sabotage themselves, so you have to deliver on it. That’s what the body of your post is about. There, list as many points as you can think of. Don’t worry if you have more than you need. Write it all. You can even go a step further and give a brief description of what each point is about.
The next step is to go through the list and see if you can combine similar points.
Now comes the conclusion. This can simply be a sentence or two about your thoughts on the topic.
Finally, the outline looks like this:
Okay, time for a confession. This is actually the outline for my next post, Ten Ways You’re Sabotaging Yourself.
I haven’t written it yet (at the time of writing this), but as soon as I sit behind my computer, I’ll know exactly what to write. In other words, no writer’s block.
Maybe you go about outlining differently. It’s perfectly valid. The purpose of an outline is to give you a structure so you don’t get stuck or run out of ideas. As long as it fulfills that purpose, you’re good to go.
My fiction usually has even more detailed outlines that span over forty pages. They contain the smallest of details, from the eye color of my characters to the entire cosmos their world belongs to. In my outline, you’ll see the entire story play out scene by scene.
It takes me between three days to a week to form my outline for a novel. But once it’s done, I don’t have to worry about writer’s block. Every time I sit behind my computer, I know exactly what to write because my outline guides me.
This is nothing special; anyone can do it.
The powerful combo of an idea bank and an outline makes you unstoppable and turns you into a writing junkie. Instead of writer’s block, you get writer’s bloom.
Yes, you heard me right — writer’s bloom. You just can’t stop overflowing with content.
By learning to find ideas and outlining them, inspiration will always be at your beck and call. What’s stopping you?
Next Read
Originally published at https://torshietorto.com on December 5, 2022.
