Eliminating writer’s block: hints and tips

I know how painful blocks can be, I’ve suffered through them too. I’ve just written an email to a blocked novelist containing hints and tips to kill the block. Here they are:

* Write something, anything. If you can speak, you can write. Movement is the key -- you have to keep moving. Start a blog. Write an article a day for a month. (You can do it, and this is the best way of breaking a block I’ve found: an article a day of at least 600 words, and you MUST send those articles out to an editor, or post them on your Web site.)

* Use lists. I start ALL my writing with lists. A list helps you to keep moving. If you’re writing a scene, write a list: Day, Place, Goal, Conflict, Character, Symbol -- your list can be anything at all. Scrawl it onto a sticky note and paste it onto your monitor, or list right within the document. If I’m writing copy, I write a list of the product’s benefits.

* Write somewhere else. Go to a coffee shop, or the library, and sit and write for half an hour or a couple of hours.

* Sit. Sit in your office chair, or wherever you write, open a document, and write, or don’t write, but sit. You can’t play Solitaire, MineSweeper, read your email or surf the Web. Sit, for at least an hour.

* (This one is HARD.) Give up all expectations for what you’re writing. Tell yourself you don’t care what the end product is like, or whether it’s publishable or not. Your only goal is to produce. If you tell yourself this often enough, you will believe it, sooner or later. If you’re into meditation, you know that this is simply a form of mindfulness, staying in the present moment.

* Decide that you won’t write for a month. If you’re under contract, this may not be possible, but if you’re not under contract, this decision will take pressure off you. It’s weird, but if you decide NOT to write, I guarantee you that by day four, you’ll want to write. :-)

Good luck. I hope these tips help. They may not. Sometimes a block has to do with something else that’s happening in our life, and the block won’t go away until that situation is resolved. If that’s the case, forget about writing for a while, and live your life. Sooner or later your writing will become irresistible to you again.

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Comments

[herbie]

You sure are correct about that "deciding to not write for a month" one. I gave up writing once... and three days later I wrote a short story in two days, typing like mad! Been writing ever since of course. That was ten years ago. That story is called "Pete's Pizza Calipers" and it's on my site. Go check it out!

Thanks for this site. Impressive.

the herb