At least once in your lifetime, you’ve probably considered writing — after all, it would be amazing to see yourself conjuring something epic like Game of Thrones. But you dismiss the idea with a snort because you think you’re not creative enough. However, every writer, even Stephen King, can at times have difficulties coming up with something wickedly good.
We all have to battle against that thrice-accursed, ignoble spawn of Satan, writer’s block.
Even though I’ve been writing since elementary school, I still struggle from writer’s block. In my passion project, I originally wanted to write part of a novel, but like with the last hundred million drafts I have written, my interest for this novel was quickly exhausted. So instead, I decided to write shorter stories. By the end of this project, I have finished two of them, and I’m starting on my third one. Sometimes writer’s block can be nasty, but there are ways to get over this: first, write from what you know, and second, don’t be harsh with the creative part of your brain.
First of all, if you’ve got a blank document on your hands and you don’t know how to start, write from what you know. A lot of my stories are based on my past experiences and thoughts. For example, one was inspired by a lonely year in eighth grade. It’s about an elf who suffered through loneliness in the 19th century Parisian upper class after escaping the destruction of the land of the faeries. She gets bullied by humans, especially her foster sister. This story was easy to write because I used a lot of what I knew. The Gothic setting came from reading the Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare and my past obsessions with 19th century Paris and England. The literary theme of the story — loneliness — came from a period of loneliness in eighth grade and talking about it with my mom. As a result, I used what I knew about the theme of alienation, including grief, being exposed to a new community, and fear of being isolated, to develop my supporting characters and create an edgy, Gothic story, complete with a friend dying of consumption. When you’re writing about your unique experiences, like depression and divorce, and about the genres you’re familiar with, like fantasy and period fiction, there’s no need to bang on your keyboard and scream at your writer’s block because you have everything. You know your own experiences on a deeper level and how you’ve learned to cope with them. So write about what you know.
Secondly, if you’re stuck in a severe case of writer’s block, encourage but don’t force your creativity out. In the process of writing drafts, my brain’s right hemisphere gets ecstatic over a brand new idea and ditches an old one. Or it unceasingly overflows onto my Google Docs at night. Or it dries up altogether during the day. I try to open up a draft and force something onto a page, but either the words come out looking disgusting or I lose interest in that story altogether. Because of creativity’s mercurial nature, I had a hard time controlling when to start and stop it. However, writers learn more from the process than from the final product. If I had writer’s block, I learned to take breaks from writing and resume later with a refreshed mind.
Exercising and planning in the shower also helped. And if my gut objected to writing about a different setting, I listened to music from that era to get me in the mood. So if you desperately need a cure to writer’s block, indirectly encourage yourself in a positive manner — taking breaks if you’ve run out of genius energy, trying other things, and listening to music — is a lot more productive than stressing in front of an empty page and strenuously forcing words out, because your mind is an unpredictable octopus and it needs some positive stimulation to make it more productive.
Overall, anyone can become a writer. Even you, the most mundane, “un-creative” person in the world, can become a writer.
Just remember — writer’s block is something that everyone goes through. But you can get over it by writing about the experiences and genres that you know most about. And when you’re stuck, take a break from writing or listen to music that fits your story’s setting. Knowing how to tackle with writer’s block is a starter to writing and one of the most important things you need to learn. Yes, other skills need practice, such as how to write imagery and showing, not telling, but even if you’re the next George R.R. Martin, you’ll still be grappling with writer’s block at times. But if you take my advice, then you’ll be able to spend more precious time improving your writing instead of sitting in front of your screen and crying.
Good luck!
