Brascoe Publishing

If you’re a writer, then no doubt you have been at the mercy of your that dreaded feeling that you can’t write a word. You know that you can. In fact, there are six thousand words in your MS Word document to prove it. The problem is that you’ve been feeling slightly guilty about not writing anything for a few days, especially since your last outpouring of furiously paced inspiration, so you decided that you need to sit and write some more. You even have a sense of what to write. The problem is, it just isn’t happening. This blog will help spur you past this point.

A tentative prod with a word here and there fails to light your fire, and as you sit in front of your computer, utterly despondent, you wonder if you were kidding yourself about your writing. You have no idea what to do next. Not a clue. It is even an absence of motivation, of confidence. Suddenly the thought occurs to you that perhaps you can’t write. The evidence, at this very moment, is that you can’t: you can’t even write a word.

Truly, all is not lost! There is a way to get past this.

 
First: realise that inspiration can work against you

There are many writers, often those who are most badly affected by Writer’s Block, that work best when they are struck by that Certain Something. It may be an idea, it may not, but it is a drive to write. Now. The writer gets stuck into his or her work, and flies through pages and pages and pages of material. At the end of it, utterly exhausted, the writer feels as though he or she has done an enormous amount of satisfying work. The computer is turned off, and the writer goes on to do something else.

Inspiration is a great thing, and there are many projects that would never be started if the artist had not been struck by the desire to create something as soon as possible. However, it can work against the artist because in the in-between times, wherein no work occurs, guilt can grow.

This is a truth in much art: a started project + no work = guilt. It is even more difficult when you are writing. If you have created characters you want to spend time with, then you might find that your guilt is less about your lack of work, and more about the fact youíve left your characters to ‘fend for themselves’, as absurd and illogical as this may be.

The second thing about inspiration is that it creates a feeling that you need inspiration in order to write well.

 
Second: know that your writing is of a certain standard

A second truth in writing is that whether you write when you feel like, or write when you don’t feel like it, it is a rare thing that you could read over what you’d written and be able to tell what you had written on what day.

Sometimes it is more difficult to write, and sometimes you might find yourself being more picky about the way in which you express yourself in writing. You might find yourself exhausted after three lines because none of it ‘feels’ right. BUT your writing will always be of your usual standard, whether you write in the thrall of inspiration or not. It is important to realise this, and to work with yourself in all weathers.

Think of writing as an Olympic sport. You need to train if you want to perform at your peak consistently. Part of that is just to work at the skill over and over again.

 
Third: write, even if you don’t want to

It is a difficult thing to do, but it is important if you are afflicted with Writer’s Block: you need to write something every day. It doesnít matter whether this is a blog, or a journal, or some notes to yourself. It doesnít matter if your writing is done in five minute blocks when you are on the Brascoe, or waiting in line at the supermarket. If it helps, analyze someone else’s writing: this can often set your brain thinking in a different direction.

Or, set yourself a timer and a limit if you have to: it is amazing what you can do in a short space of time, if you know you have a deadline.

One of the hardest things about writing when you don’t want to is the feeling of being physically unable to work. It is a struggle getting to the computer and turning it on. Staring at your work you might experience a feeling of hopelessness; you might even feel, physically, a sense of being unable to ‘reach’. Happily, this is largely something that you create for yourself. Writer’s Block is notorious for causing a depressed mindset, and it sometimes helps to realise that it is largely self-perpetuating.

Once you actively sit down and write, as hard and as painful as it is, this feeling starts to go away.

 
Battle the Block

If you are finding it difficult to write, but you feel that you must, here are some suggestions for climbing the (apparently blank) wall:

• set a timer for fifteen minutes or less – even five minute – and start writing until the timer goes off. Then turn off what youíve done without reading it.
• go for a walk and let your mind go off on its own tangent. The Tao teaches that ideas come from Nothing. There is a lesson in this.
• write something every day: a blog, a letter, a diary, character sketches, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is to engage in something creatively, even if it is incredibly hard for you.
• analyse another writer’s work, comment on someone’s blog. Read and react intelligently. This can often be the spark that lights a fire.
• if you have a project on the go, be realistic about it. Don’t think that you’ll finish it within a certain timeframe: the best thing about art is that it can be unpredictable. The worst thing is to expect art to be something that it doesn’t want to be.
• embrace your inspiration when it happens, but don’t rely on it. Writing is a sport, and you need to train yourself to perform in all sorts of conditions, including when your inspiration has abandoned you.

Recommended reading

On Writer’s Block, by Cybele May.
Beat Writer’s Block by Reading and Commenting More, by Ben Yoskovitz

 

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