It seems like there’s two brands of writer’s block: there’s “My muse has not graced me with her presence,” and there’s, “I have no ideas.” Maybe there are more, but we’re going to focus on these two.
The short version is: I think both are a bit BS.
I can understand factors in every day life that take up mental energy. Sometimes my space is cluttered and dirty, and I can’t focus. I can understand being busy and distracted.1 I can understand needing a break from the process. I can even understand staring at a story and being like, “This story is impossible. I need to work on something else today.”
The choice not to write is valid; you can decide today is a day that you need to preserve your energy for other tasks, or spend time with your family. But to then say, “Oh, I would write today, but you know — writer’s block,” is bullshit. It’s an excuse that you’re painting as a reason.
It may take a lot of coffee to work through Writer’s Block. Are you prepared for that? Picture from here.
Writer’s Block is the invention of a scribe who couldn’t turn an assignment in on time, who had too many other things on his mind (yeah it was a man who invented the cop-out, go figure), or was just plain lazy.
Well, maybe not. Maybe being blocked is real. Maybe. But there are ways around it, over, under, through it and the determined writer has to be prepared to find those ways. Most of those ways are constituted in actually doing the work.
Anxiety is what it is. One isn’t necessarily ‘blocked’ but rather is anxious about either the work or something associated with it. Overcoming it is basic problem-solving:
1- What do you want?
2 – Why can’t you have it?
3 – What are you prepared to do to get it?
Being blocked is when the writer gets to the second question and says “I don’t know!” and that’s where the cop-out is. Right there? See it? I. Don’t. Know.
Block is continued when the writer doesn’t have any idea of how to overcome the anxiety that has afflicted him. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do to get what he wants, which is to Write. So instead of calling bullshit and working through the ‘block’, some writers crawl into a bottle (liquor, pills, whatever) and go down for the count, making the anxiety worse.
The best cure I’ve found for being blocked is to actually write. Not what I want to write, but something else, something light and fluffy and not at all related to what I should be working on. The old brainbox is stuck on something, some problem, and it’s all rooted in the subconscious. Time to dig our your Freud, kids, and examine what’s in your head. For instance, I’m writing this post in early June because I’m stuck at a point in my novel where I need to solve a problem that’s going to get out of hand if I don’t think it through a little better.
So yeah, writer’s block is real and has been studied and studied and studied by people smarter than you or me. Being blocked is no excuse. It’s a cop-out to say “I’m blocked so I’m not writing.” That’s an unacceptable response to your craft if one is a serious writer. A lack of inspiration is one thing and also easily solved by a writer who wants to write: go somewhere and open your mind.
You need stimulation but don’t go overboard. You still need to sit down and write. Remember the recipe for a good story: butt in chair, fingers on keys.
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the classic meandering semi-fictional work from the 60s, narrator-author Robert Persig tells a student suffering from writer’s block to start writing about one brick in one building on her town’s main street. The student comes back to him transfixed, with pages and pages of writing about that brick, and the next, and then the whole building and whole downtown and EVERYTHING, and the curse was lifted! She was no longer blocked and could write ecstatically.
Alas, if only writer’s block was really that easy to overcome. The question this week asks if there’s such a thing as “writer’s block,” and I suppose my answer to that is “no.” I don’t believe there’s an actual psychological condition that hinders a previously productive writer from working. It’s something of an excuse, something of a myth–you can always write about that first brick, right?
Except when you can’t. And at those times,”writer’s block” is a convenient shorthand for whatever is wrong. Depression, for one, cripples creativity and pretty much everything else too. It certainly blocks writing for some people (and usually for me). I know many great writers managed to keep going through depression–indeed, rumor has it that Shirley Jackson, among others, actually wrote herself out of depression–and I admire this feat, but that’s not how it usually works for me. Depression accompanies self-doubt, this suspicion that my words and ideas are worthless and don’t even deserve the data space on my computer.
As a Municipal Liaison for NaNoWriMo, I often act as coach for fellow writers that are struggling to keep up the minimum pace necessary to complete a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Sometimes they’re just moving slowly, but other times they’re not moving at all. And some of them are moving backwards. Over the years I’ve gleaned lots of interesting tricks to break through writer’s block, whether it’s the morass of slow writing or the whiplash snap of a complete block, doesn’t matter: I gots tricks.
One of the best tricks I’ve ever learned was shared with me by Dave deHetre. His answer to writing, not just during NaNo, but during the entire creative process, is to promise yourself to commit to writing 500 words every day. 500 words is an arbitrary number, but it’s a good one. It’s more than just a paragraph or two, but not necessarily an entire scene or a complete chapter. 500 words can be written in 10-30 minutes by most writers, depending on how smoothly and effortlessly the words are flowing. And 500 words can often serve to break through the logjam of writer’s block, and lead to many more words to follow, and at a much greater pace. (more…)
One of these girls believes in writer’s block. The other does not.
I think it’s hilarious that the existence or non-existence of writer’s block gets people’s panties in such a tight little bunch.
Unlike a lot of people, my feelings about it are lukewarm, maybe tinged with amusement.
Is there a magical curse that blocks the flow of a writer’s creative source, sucking him dry and preventing him from writing anything but total and utter crap? No. Of course not. But writers are a superstitious lot. We have to be. Making stuff up is what we do.
But.
There are always going to be days when we pull out every single word onto the page like a fishhook that’s been embedded deep in the skin. It’s not always manic rivers of prose flowing from lightning-charged fingertips. (more…)
I’m sure even non-writers are familiar with the phrase “writer’s block” and understand it to mean a point where a writer finds it absolutely impossible to finish writing whatever he or she is currently working on.
I know that a lot of people, many writers included, would argue that writer’s block is just a myth.
Let me tell you, folks, that regardless of what my fellow Confabulators might say this week – all of their explaining away of the phrase – writer’s block is, in fact, a real thing.
I do need to qualify that statement, however. Some writers are lazy, or pretend to be too busy, or just can’t be bothered with the actual act of writing. Even some serious writers (myself included) will use writer’s block as an excuse to avoid working on a project that needs attention because we don’t want to work.
That is not writer’s block. That’s something else. (more…)
Every writer can tell you a story about having writer’s block at one time or another. It happens. It’s part of human nature. Just like not doing the dishes or forgetting to get the oil changed on the car.
We’re procrastinators, and we like to put things off. That includes writing.
Now, some writers might say that they never intend to get writer’s block. I’m sure that’s true. I also never intend to whack my elbow into the countertop when I’m in the kitchen. But I also know the kitchen didn’t rearrange itself to cause my accident. It was my fault. If I had planned better, it wouldn’t have happened.
The secret of writer’s block is that there’s no such thing as writer’s block.
Here’s what we do as writers. When we’re asked to write these blogs, about whatever the subject may be, we tell you what works for us.
We are not experts or authorities on some long-decided rule of law. We’re people with lots of opinions and varying levels of experience, and that’s about it. So when we’re asked to comment on whether or not writer’s block is a real thing, the only honest answer is we don’t know.
There are a lot of people out there who have no problem telling you writer’s block is a myth. Writer’s write, after all, and if you aren’t doing that, well . . . you’re not much a writer then. So stop making excuses already.
I’ve read a lot of posts like that, some of them by authors I admire. But here’s where I part ways with that line of thinking. If our minds can totally screw with us in every other aspect of our lives, why is it hard to believe it could prevent us from writing? What is so special about the written word that it is somehow inoculated against mental blockades?
“One reason I don’t suffer from writer’s block is that I don’t wait on the muse, I summon it at need.” – Piers Anthony
I know some people will hate me for saying this, but there is no such thing as writer’s block.
Writer’s block is built on shaky self-confidence and not much else. It’s like being afraid of the boogeyman. We can all relate, but there is nothing there. Get out of bed and if something grabs you, punch it in the throat. It’s probably your significant other. That will teach them.
Chances are, you can think of something to write. You just can’t convince yourself that it is going to be worth a crap. Then it snowballs. You become convinced your ideas suck. Then you start thinking that your writing sucks. Next, you are questioning whether you are really meant to be a writer, at all.
You know how some guys don’t like to talk about a certain “condition” because they’re afraid it will happen to them? Because they’re afraid they’ll have to start taking those little blue pills advertised so prominently on late night television? Well there’s a condition — an equally performance-inhibiting affliction — that affects writers. It’s called writer’s block.
Here at the Cafe, however, we’re not afraid to talk about it. In fact, when we posed the question to our writers, they all jumped at the chance to put in their two cents on this often overlooked scourge. Some think it’s real. Some think it’s all in your head. But all of our Cafe regulars have some wise words for aspiring writers facing this problem.
