Bad Diagnoses: What’s Wrong With Writer’s Block.
Writer’s block exists. But it is not a useful diagnosis.
I have worked as a writing teacher for two decades. And in almost every course I teach, we inevitably come up against the idea of writer’s block: the mysterious ailment that scuppers the hopes and dreams of writers everywhere.
Many writers are sceptical that there even is such a thing. They protest that writer’s block is an idea we could do without. In 2009, on the Q&A section of his website, Philip Pullman wrote:
I don’t believe in it. All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block, and doctors don’t get doctor’s block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?
Elsewhere, Pullman has been quoted as saying that the idea of writer’s block is “howling nonsense” (this is one of those quotes that are widely shared, but hard to source). And it is easy to have some sympathy for Pullman’s arguments. The idea that writers should have a special affliction of their own seems a weird one. All work involves some kind of difficulty. Why should writers be the only ones who are allowed to have a mysterious work-related ailment?
