Of Course Writer’s Block Is Real
By: Judith Deborah
Tags: Inspiration, Creativity, Writing, Writing Tips, Fiction

Of Course Writer’s Block Is Real

And here’s what you can do about it

Image by skeeze from Pixabay

I am a fairly mild-mannered, non-violent writer lady, but nothing makes me want to punch someone in the face quite as much as being told there’s no such thing as writer’s block. Making writers who already hate themselves feel like they must be either delusional or self-indulgent for suffering a block? NOT HELPING.

Let’s put that nonsense to bed right now, shall we? Then we’ll figure out what to do about the block when it’s got its teeth sunk into the backs of our necks.

Forthwith: the three biggest lies.

LIE ONE: Creators in other disciplines don’t suffer blocks. It’s only writers who let themselves off the creative hook by imagining they’re being stifled by some sinister exterior force.

THE TRUTH: This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You think Twyla Tharp never suffered a block? Or Alexander Calder? Or Franz Schubert? Every creative artist who ever lived has stared into the abyss. Okay, maybe not Kanye West. Actually, probably even him.

I suspect that the area where writers stand out from other artists is not so much their getting blocks as the sheer depth of self-loathing they put themselves through as a result.

LIE TWO: If you treat writing as a job like any other job, like, say, brick-laying, your block will evaporate.

THE TRUTH: It is certainly advisable to treat your writing like any other job, because it is one and should be respected as such. But to do other jobs, one generally has one’s tools lined up and available, and one knows what one is supposed to do with them. One does not need to completely reimagine and reinvent the product one is meant to create with those tools every single time a new project is begun. The “writing: regular-job” analogy works on one important level: the self-respect that accompanies a solid work ethic helps the writer take him- or herself seriously, and that is a critical goal. But the analogy fails completely as a direct equivalent. Brick-laying is not writing.

LIE THREE: All you need to do is prepare. If you’ve worked out what you need to write ahead of time, the floodgates will open. (In other words, make an outline.)

THE TRUTH: Hard truth, fellow writers: for some this advice works, but for others — and I am one of them — it is not only not the key to breaking the block but it makes the block worse. The mental act of preparation and the mental act of creation are completely different. You might find you are capable of outlining a novel to within an inch of its life and still find yourself unable to choke out even a single sentence of actual prose when it’s time to do the creating. You might find that the outline’s very existence — the story’s beats exposed and lined up neatly on a page in front of you — completely saps your interest in turning that story into prose, as part of the exhilaration of writing for you has always been the surprise factor. You might try to press on with writing from the outline anyway, but discover that the prose feels off, or flat, or uninspired, or vaguely not of your voice — all problems that sap confidence and open the door to the block.

Skill at pre-organizing fiction is not, alas, the same as skill at writing it. Would that it were. (There is a variant of this advice, however, that can help; you’ll see it below.)

Okay, we’re agreed that blocks are real. What can we do about them?

Glad you asked!

Here are some ideas that might help — ideas ripped from the still-beating heart of my own nightmarish experiences with writer’s block. I’ve divided them into stages: 1) preparatory steps, 2) stealth moves to help you approach the block, and 3) block-tasering coups de grâce.

Some of the following bits of advice are old standbys and others might seem a little off-the-wall. I suggest trying them all. You might be surprised what works for you. I’ve put them in an order that makes sense to me, but feel free to mix them up if that serves you better. (Also, note that these are not meant to be done all in one day. If you’re anything like me, your block is a major edifice; it might take a little time to find just the spot to strike to bring the whole thing tumbling down.)

STAGE ONE: Preparatory steps

You might feel like crying in frustration. If you do feel that way, cry away. Get it out. Scream if required. This is every bit as awful and maddening and unfair as you think it is. Acknowledge those feelings, and in the process, respect your own emotions and that wonderful part of you that so desperately wants to create. That part of you is fighting for life right now. It needs attention and love. If it needs to cry in anguish, let it. Do something that will require your hands and brain to cooperate for a couple of hours. If you can knit, make a simple thing. (This is not the time for Fair Isle socks.) Do a reasonably challenging jigsaw puzzle. Whatever activity you choose, give yourself over to it entirely. Forget about writing. Focusing on a small eye-hand challenge will give your brain a refreshing, gentle workout, and it will love you for it. Enjoy the blast of freedom you’re giving yourself from both the drill sergeant in your head ordering you to stop sucking and create, damn it and the gnawing self-hatred that comes with being (at least temporarily) unable to comply. This is similar to #2 but requires a dollop of creativity — nothing threatening or writing-related, so have no fear. Do a small creative thing that isn’t writing. Draw a picture, even if you can’t draw. (I can’t really draw anything beyond three-dimensional cubes, but I am not above taking pride in my three-dimensional cubes when I can’t write a word.) If you play a musical instrument or sing, doodle something musical into existence — just a few bars are all you need. If you feel comfortable in the kitchen, go invent some weird small concoction. Maple syrup on onion-rye toast? Give it a whirl. This exercise will help you accomplish two valuable things: you will be limbering up your creative muscles with the gentlest possible workout, and you will be taking mental time off from the self-loathing. Go to the front door and walk out of your house. Get some fresh air and move your body, even if that means nothing more than a two-minute walk to the mailbox and back. [DISCLAIMER: I have to work on this myself. When I am in the grip of a really bad block, I go into a strange hibernation mode and have to be coaxed to leave the house. Days can pass. Writer’s block thus becomes a kind of house arrest for me. Don’t be me! I will work on applying this step as assiduously as I hope you will.] If you have access to an animal, spend some time observing its beautiful, unselfconscious interest in the world. Don’t try to learn anything from it or describe it to yourself in your head. Just enjoy it. If you have access to a baby, cuddle that baby. Kiss its downy cheeks. Let its smile crack your suffering heart open. The perspective a baby’s smile can give an artist in anguish is quite astonishing. Try it. If you have access to a small child, get on the floor and play with that child. Give that child your undivided attention. If you have access to an old person, hang out with him or her and encourage them to talk for a few hours. Give them the gift of your interest and attention. This is not for the purpose of gathering grist for your writer’s mill. The purpose is to feel the good feeling of acknowledging someone else’s humanity: of honestly and intentionally getting out of the inside of your own head. Old people have earned our attention but rarely get it, and the blast of fresh air this exercise can provide will do your brain a world of good. (It’s also a mitzvah, which definitely can’t hurt.)

STAGE TWO: Stealth moves to help you approach the block

Go to your computer (or legal pad or whatever else you might write on). Turn it on (or click open your ballpoint or sharpen your pencil). Your purpose now is simply to be in the presence of these tools. Don’t try to write anything. Just make friends with your implements again. They are not there to hurt or shame you. They are there to help you, and will do so when you are ready. Consider for a few minutes the incredible weirdness of this thing we do. Because it is weird. Inventing people and events out of whole cloth is a peculiar thing to do. I’ve been making up stories since I was six years old, and it still feels bizarre and unnatural and makes me intensely self-conscious every single time I sit down to start something new. I can’t explain why that stifling little notion is still living inside my head after three novels and a dissertation and a zillion blog posts, and I’m certainly not going to try to convince you that it isn’t in the head of “real” writers or that you should pretend it isn’t in yours. Quite the opposite. Look it right in the face. Look at how funny-looking it is. Find the humor in its silly features. Offer it a coffee. Don’t try to make it budge or do anything. Just accept it. When you stop hating on it, it might loosen up and let you create something, however small and unrelated to the project at hand. Once that happens — once the creative door is open a crack — you might not be home free, but things will definitely be looking up. Go to your bookshelf or your Kindle and find something you’ve read by someone else — something you admire greatly. Sit down and copy it out word for word. The act of simply typing out good work, whether we created it or not, oils the gears in our heads. It inspires us and loosens things up. It is also very cheering to sidle up to greatness in this way, and good cheer is incredibly important right now. If you have existing work, find something you’ve written in the past — something you’re particularly proud of. Sit down again and copy that out too, word for word. Then read it over. Admire it without reservation. YOU MADE THAT THING, DAMN IT. YOU SEE? THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF. Okay, we’re going to dip a toe in the water now. This is meant to shake things up a little; it’s a small curveball designed to surprise your brain into doing a tiny creative thing. Write three sentences in a genre you’ve never written in before. Do not allow yourself to go beyond three sentences. If you write literary fiction, write three sentences of science fiction. If you write military space opera, write three sentences of chick lit. Make them as authentic-sounding or preposterous as you like. After you’ve written the three sentences and polished them a little, read them over. They will probably make you laugh. Excellent!

STAGE THREE: Block-tasering coups de grâce

This is where that earlier advice about preparation comes into play. Think of your unwritten project, the vast blank page. There is probably a single moment, maybe two, in that project that you can just vaguely visualize — a sense, a feeling, an image. Don’t try to write it as a scene yet. Write down a few bullet points about it instead. I mean a few — two, maybe three. If that exercise prompted any other senses or feelings or images to begin to form in your head, go ahead and jot down a few bullet points about those too. If not, don’t worry about it. Go back to those first few bullets. Now try to write a small chunk of prose around them. Some people like doing this as a time-delimited sprint; if that works for you, fine, but if it doesn’t, work as slowly as you like and take as long as you need. Just let your fingers move over the keyboard with the scaffolding of those few bullet points there to support you. If you panic, stop. It’s okay. The bullet points will be there when you’re feeling stronger. If you got a paragraph out, smile. That is a big deal, writer. Read it over. It’s not too bad, is it? See what you can do? Feel like revising it? Go ahead. Smooth it out; buff off those rough edges. Now close the file. Get up. Walk away from the desk. Go eat something. If you possibly can, get out of the house. Come back to your desk. At least a few hours should have passed. Take another look at that paragraph you wrote earlier. Mm-hmm. It really is pretty good. Tweak it a little more if you feel like it. Then pick up the paper where you jotted down those other bullet points. Try another set. When you’re feeling strong enough, let your mind think about three moments in the novel you’re planning: the beginning, the end, and the high point. Choose one. Write out a few bullet points for it. Try the above exercise. If you hit a wall, go back and try a different one. If you get nowhere, forget about all three. Choose a random character — doesn’t have to be the main character — and write a random moment for him or her. Not a character bio or description — a moment in which something happens, no matter how trivial. (Apropos of which: For the love of God, don’t waste your time on virtue-signaling writing-adjacent activities that feel productive but aren’t. Extensive character bios might feel good, but for most writers, they are little more than exercises in writing-avoidance. Research, too, is wildly tantalizing but must be kept rigorously in check if you’re ever going to get any actual writing done [trust me; I have really been down that road]. My latest effort at creativity-diverting wheel-spinning: closely reading and taking copious notes on multiple writing methods as espoused by different gurus. I now have reams of computer notes on the writing approaches of James Scott Bell, Dean Wesley Smith, Lisa Cron, and too many others to count without crawling under the desk in embarrassment. Their insights were certainly valuable, but how many words did all that zealous note-taking add to the projects on my docket? ZERO. There is a time for such explorations, but don’t confuse them with the act of creation.) Keep your writing implement of choice (laptop, phone, dictaphone, pad and pen) with you at all times, especially within easy reach while you sleep. When I start to chip away at a block, my subconscious gets excited, and it will sometimes wake me up before my alarm with phrases and sentences. If I don’t get them down immediately I will lose all of them. The Notes app on my Samsung has rescued my imagination on many occasions. Don’t let those gems dematerialize. Straighten up your work area. Respect yourself and your work enough to make your workspace habitable. Consider assembling musical playlists to help you get into the right head for different kinds of scenes. (This works beautifully for some while for others, music during writing is a no-no.) If this does help you, it can be a tremendous boon, as music can act as a shortcut into a particular mental state and get you into flow a little faster. Just beware, as with my obsessive note-taking, that you don’t let the compiling of playlists become a distracting end in itself (i.e., a means of avoiding your creative work). Okay, back to actual writing. Choose a scene in your story. Jot down a few bullets if you found that helpful. This time, write as fast as you can, ideally not looking at the screen if you can manage that. The only caveat about the writing is that you should start the scene in the middle. Close the file. Now open a new one and write the same scene all over again, this time writing it from the beginning. Compare the two versions. Weave together what works best from each. At this point, the wheels should be turning, and it should be a little less scary to think about the project head-on. Take a little time to think about how you want to do the writing — do you want to write the book in chronological order? Do you want to know where it’s going before you start? If you are an outliner, this is the time to get to it. If you are not, just start typing. If you are seized with panic, don’t worry. Deep breath. Back up. Go back to the bullet-point exercise. Think scene by scene, and if that’s too much, think moment by moment. It’ll come.

But what if it doesn’t? What if no matter what you try, you still end up staring at a blank page? What if that creepy, hectoring, judgmental little creature in your head is still kicking your butt from here to next week?

I know exactly what that is like, and I have two pieces of advice.

The first is this: ask for help. I don’t mean ask for help writing the material. I mean reach out to someone who cares about you and admit to that person that you are suffering. Let that person help you stay upright for just a little while longer. Let them figure out how to do that for you. If they love you, they’ll know what you need.

Here’s a story to illustrate this point.

Last summer, I was trying to finish a novel. My children were attending a horseback-riding camp for a week, and I decided to hole myself up in a hotel nearby with the express purpose of finishing the book with no distractions. It was already about two-thirds done, so this seemed a reasonable challenge.

Bright idea, right? But after some encouraging initial movement, I seized up. (Yes, writer’s block can strike mid-project.) I just couldn’t do it. I sat alone for whole days, refusing to allow myself to leave the room and the laptop, horribly conscious of the minutes and hours ticking by. I was filled with dread at the thought of leaving at the end of the week without a finished draft. That dread manifested as a calcifying creative paralysis, which of course was the worst thing that could have happened.

It reached the point where in the small hours one night, I found myself sprawled like a starfish across the hotel bedspread, crying. I’d reached the end of the road, I realized. The existence of my previous two novels notwithstanding, I was obviously a complete fraud. I would not finish that book. I would never write another book. I was not a writer after all.

Then, thank goodness, I did the smartest thing I could possibly have done: I picked up my phone and texted two words to a friend of mine — someone who, though he lives many time zones away, is always there for me.

This is what I texted him: Help me.

Five minutes later my phone dinged. Incoming text.

Now, here is what my friend did not do. He did not text me “You GOT this!!” or “YOU CAN DO IT! YOU GO, GIRL!!!” No. What he sent me was a recording of himself reciting one of my favorite Shakespearean sonnets.

Why was this perfect? Because it soothed me and got me off the emotional ledge for a couple of minutes, which was a huge gift. Because it gave me a dose of pure beauty, and beauty is a balm when we’re suffering. Because it eased me gently out of self-referential creator-head and reminded me what being awed by art feels like, which my friend knew me well enough to know would serve as medicine. Because it reminded me that I’m loved and understood by at least one person on earth, which is incredibly necessary at a time when you feel weak and hopeless — exactly the things writer’s block makes you feel.

Here is the reality. Writer’s block will try to kill your creative spirit stone dead, and it is entirely capable of doing so. Respect its power. Enlist forces against it. Let the people who love you love you. Let them strengthen you. The stronger you feel, the better able you’ll be to fight back.

The last piece of advice I have to give sounds hokey, but I’m deadly serious about this. You have to forgive yourself. A writer suffering a serious block is in terrible pain, yet oddly, the most common response seems to be emotional self-flagellation. Guard against this toxic impulse. It’s uniquely awful to find yourself fearing that you might not be able to produce the kind of creative work you believe defines you. That fear can gut you completely. So put your psychic arms around yourself. You’re trying to fight a monster here. Honor and feed your own strength. You need it.

Remember, beloved fellow writer: the act of creation is an act of love. You are giving of yourself whether the world acknowledges your gift or not. That’s a selfless act and a beautiful one. But to give love you must feel it; your well must be full.

And as the great American philosopher RuPaul says, if you don’t love yourself, how in hell are you going to love somebody else? And how in hell are you going to write your books? We need them, writer. We need you.

Here’s something that sounds like bad news but isn’t. You will never kill writer’s block dead. It will reanimate like that liquid metal guy in that Terminator sequel and will be right back in your face the next time you start a project. But you know what? It’s up to you to decide whether to let him kill either your spirit or your work. So throw him off his game. Open the door wide to him. Give him the comfy chair. Brew up that weird tea he likes. Let him visit for a little while. Then politely show him out.

For whatever it’s worth, I know what you’re going through. I’ve been there — hell, I’m there right now. I understand.

I’ve got your back, and I sincerely hope these ideas help.