How to Beat Writer's Block

To be honest, I’ve been struggling to figure out what to write for this post. Ideas pop into my mind and then disappear before they coalesce into a clear thought. In many ways, that reminds me of the general process of writing. It’s not uncommon for me to have a day or more of a dry spell, where writing anything new becomes difficult. Words get stuck in a brain fog of unfocused intent, unable to escape to the organized freedom of a page.

Some writers may call it writer’s block, but I’m not sure it is entirely a block. In my experience it doesn’t feel so much like a physical barrier to productivity or creativity. Instead, it feels more like a hesitation or nervousness to produce something. The difficulty I feel putting words on paper is more like I’m struggling to find the right way to say something. I don’t have any evidence of that, per se, but I hope I can explain it a little bit better as I go on.

When I run into writer’s block, I often find myself writing something–even up to a paragraph–and then deleting it. Sometimes the thought that leads to the deletion is that it just doesn’t sound right. At other times, I delete it because I don’t like the direction or word choice of what I’ve written. I’m not arguing that what I write in those times is actually any good. In fact, it’s all likely to be pretty bad. Even so, if I choose to not delete it, but just keep writing, eventually I overcome the problem and produce something. It normally requires editing, but it’s still something I wrote. As a writer, just because something I created isn’t ideal, doesn’t make it horrible. That’s why editing exists. 

So, while this may be a short post, it’s taken me over an hour to write and edit. I’ve been battling writer’s block as I created it. It may not be supremely eloquent. It may not even be very coherent. It’s probably very stream-of-consciousness and difficult to follow, but I’m still persevering. In conclusion, I guess I mean to say that the best way to fight writer’s block, or even a lack of motivation, is to just press on. If you start and keep pushing, you will still end up with something written down. So if you find yourself trapped by writer’s block, keep pushing. You’ll still end up with something to work with.