The song is called “After You’ve Gone” and it’s played by yours truly on the saxophone. I thought you might want some nice instrumental music if you choose to read this. 🙂 It was composed by Turner Layton, Phil Soussan, and Steve Lukather.
It’s been awhile since I’ve suffered from writer’s block—a condition that writers have coined as clinical but which may simply refer to an extreme lack of motivation and/or ideas.
Today, I feel that I have writer’s block, but I’m writing, aren’t I? I seem to be okay enough to put something to the page, so maybe that’s all there is to it: Just write one word after another and, eventually, you’ll come up with a finished piece.
In any case, there are ways to deal with writer’s block. Whether you believe it is a serious and dire condition or not, we all struggle with motivation and/or ideas sometimes.
Read
This is perhaps the most foolproof way to deal with writer’s block: Read something. Anything really—a novel, a magazine, a newsletter, a book of poetry. This can get the gears going in your head so that you have some semblance of an idea to work with. It (almost) always helps me.
After all, the best writers are the most voracious readers more often than not.
Write about the Problem
I know what you’re thinking: The problem is that I can’t write right now. The thing is, you can. You can pen a piece about writer’s block. You can write all about your reluctance to put words on a page. You will likely be surprised by just how effective this is.
Explore Other Mediums
Sometimes, I find myself painting or playing some music when an idea suddenly strikes and I feel moved to write it down. This can help to get the ball rolling and inspire you to come up with an interesting idea for your articles.
Move
Many times, I will take a walk and come back feeling more motivated: Staring at a blank screen for too long can be annoying, so getting out and enjoying nature usually makes a world of difference. You might also see something on your stroll and think to yourself, that would make a great story. Bingo!
We all struggle with motivation, whether we believe in writer’s block or not. Sometimes, we all have a creative block. When this occurs, it’s important to figure out how to proceed without losing productivity. I’ve found that these actions help, even when I’m feeling as uninspired as humanly possible.
What about you? Do you have any tips for ways to deal with writer’s block?
Good advice,
I never wrote longer texts before coming to Sstack, first 4 weeks I was having few thoughts along lines of :
- What if I do not have topic in my mind for next week ?
- What if I ran out of ideas ?
- Where to get things to write about ?
Then after 4 weeks of creating text with knowledge that is important for ones improvement, I tried to sit down and instead of engagin in ' writers block ' , whenever I need topic to write about I use ' topic block '.
Works the same but You focus - what topics / wisdom / matter You think is worth being seen by people.
What it is that helped me and others, inspired or made everything better for many.
Sometime write just about what gets You going - passion, interests and what gives You enjoy doing.
You saw my first try at this ' topic blk - brainstorm - ideas block ' - I sat for 5-10 mins - In silence, patient, and I came up with 10 medium and deep topics that will give a lot of value and foundation for many ; basically I've got material for next 2 + months of work.
Also I have notepad In my office/room and in car - if any idea comes knocking on door.
I hope it helps to anyone who struggle with coming up with ideas.
I never thought about overcoming writers block by writing about the problem itself. That's a great tip to get your brain working. Thanks for sharing!