What is writers block? How can I avoid writers block? Does everyone get writers block?
The way I describe writers block is when you (the writer) are at a complete dead stop and can no longer think of anything to write, and I mean anything. It literally feels like someone wiped your brain of all potential thoughts, and or ideas. Imagine you’re driving a car on the highway and you have to take a detour, but when you exit the highway, there are no signs telling you which way to take the detour so you just start driving around aimlessly for hours until you finally give up. That’s what writers block feels like.
I don’t think there’s any true way to avoid writers block, just ways to help prevent it. When you find yourself writing and start to lose momentum and it feels like you’re pulling teeth trying to make sense on the page, walk away. Just walk away. If you try to sit there making sense of the random words you’re spewing out. It just wont work. So, step away, drop the pencil, close the laptop, and walk away. Watch a movie, or take a nap, do something to distract your mind from what you were trying to write. When the time feels write, come back to your piece and crank out some more work. It’s like what they say, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. And it’s true. Your work is not completed in one day, it takes time to craft what you’re thinking. So don’t stress about writers block, it’s a natural state of creative writing and everyone goes through it.
I myself am guilty for not following the advice I just gave above. I always feel like there is this insane amount of pressure to get everything out and in the open, as if I only have one shot to write what I wanna write. But that is so false. The good thing about creative writing is that you can go back any time and change and/or add whatever you want. I’m guilty of trying to act like I always know what I want to write, but I often find myself at a loss as soon as I grab a pen or open my laptop.
Writers block is never fun but with patience and acceptance that no one/nothing is perfect, we can over come this deadly mental block and create some of our best work.
Hi Brianna,
Your post reminded me of something I do to help myself in this situation and others. Probably more often than writer’s block, I struggle with motivation. (The combination of the two is even worse.) On the occasion that I manage to break out of that, I take note of what I did to get back on track. I keep a list on my phone of all the things that have helped me in these cases and others. It looks something like this:
What to do when I…
Feel depressed:
make a cup of coffee
clean the house
build a fort
Need motivation:
start off by journaling
listen to writing “playlists”
call my sister
Basically, whenever something works, I jot it down for the next time I have that problem. I’ve found this to be helpful a number of times, so I thought I’d share it since I know all too well how frustrating writer’s block can be.