There’s no such thing as writer’s block

It’s Tuesday morning and you’ve caffeinated, cleared your diary for the next hour, made it to your desk leaving your phone in the kitchen with its notifications switched off. Ready to go. This time you mean business. For real. Yet half an hour later you’re still going round in circles, editing the same paragraph over and over and getting nowhere. Maybe you couldn’t think of a single sentence worth committing to. Maybe you couldn’t even face opening your document.

Yes, you’re blocked. But you don’t have ‘writer’s block’. Because writer’s block is a symptom, not the disease. Writer’s block is your brain’s warning light that something deeper is wrong, so if you’re feeling stuck, this is good news! Writing coach Christina Larocco reminded me in her recent newsletter that ‘resistance is not the opposite of progress’ because it shows up precisely at the points where you’re seriously engaging with what you’re doing, and that is most definitely progress.

You’re blocked because instinctively you know that something needs attention and if you carry on, you could be heading off in completely the wrong direction. There’s no ‘cure’ for writer’s block in the same way that you don’t just disconnect the warning light when your car tells you there’s a fault. And the good news is that once you fix the fault it’s always possible to get unstuck. Here are some diagnostic questions to ask:

1.    Do you know what you want to write?

This seems such an obvious question, but we often try to begin before we’re ready. I don’t mean in the sense of having read all the things before you even open your laptop or notebook, but in the sense that you start before you know what you want to say.

The fix: Try mapping out the argument structure for your piece. What do you want to persuade your reader of, and what is the best way of doing that? What reasons does your reader need to accept your assertion, and what evidence do you have for why those reasons are true, or at least plausible?

2.    Are you actually writing about what you thought you were writing about?

Tell-tale signs of this are a sudden need to read a whole different literature, start over, fundamentally change a story or an argument, do more interviews, or collect more data.

The fix: If this is happening, hit emergency stop, step away and go back to basics. Free-write, non-stop, for 10 minutes about your project. Begin ‘What I really want to say is…’ move to ‘What I haven’t said yet is…’ and end with ‘If I were really brave I’d say…’ and see what turns up.

3.   Do you have a choice to make that feels scary?

Choosing a course of action means not choosing several others. That takes courage.

The fix: Try making one or two ‘test’ choices in different documents and seeing where they lead. Or more simply, just know that there are always many possible routes through a piece so just pick one and run with it, uncomfortable as it feels.

4.   Are you tired of what you’re writing, or unconvinced by what you’re saying?

Sometimes the ideas for the section you’re working on haven’t gestated properly and it’s not quite time for them to be born.

The fix: Don’t waste time forcing them into the world, stop right where you are and move onto something you do feel confident and/or interested in. The flow you’ll get from working on safer ground might help you unlock the tricky section later.

5.   Are you expecting too much of yourself today?

“Finish this chapter” or “Write 2000 words” are big mountains to climb when maybe you only have an hour to write.

The fix: Scale it back. Write 300 words, or write one section, then schedule some other blocks in the upcoming days when you can do the same. You’ll make some progress today, and be reassured that you have a plan to get done in time to meet your deadline.

6.   Are you confusing editing/ revising with writing?

They’re two different tasks and when you try to edit while you’re writing you get bogged down searching for that precise word, or perfect sentence instead of simply making the text exist. Likewise, when you start drastically (re)writing while you’re editing you might be in danger of shifting the goalposts – see ‘2’ above.

The fix: If you’re writing, write. If you’re editing, edit!

Triaging in this way will lessen the fear that you’ll ‘never write again’, your project is doomed, or you ‘just can’t do this’, because you know you have a repair kit to hand. It’s also highly likely that you’ll get stuck less often. The bottom line is that if you treat sticky patches with curiosity, asking ‘what is this block trying to tell me?’ you’ll learn to welcome the resistance when it comes. If you want to know more about how to get unstuck, try reading ‘Why Can’t I Just Do This?’ next. And if you’re battling an inner critic that’s stopping you writing, you’ll find helpful advice and tips in the Guest Blog Taming the Inner Critic: A Therapist’s Guide to Authentic Writing and Self-Compassion