Overcoming Writer’s Block
That heading should be accompanied by ominous music and this special affect echo so that you hear the words fading into the distance long after you’ve read them (writer’s block, writer’s block, writer’s…block…). Yes, don’t adjust your eyes, I was playing around with the font size there to visually reinforce that whole idea of distance…It seems one of the main problems students in Rhetoric and Composition classes (as well as other areas of the known universe where we are required to write) is this infernal issue of “writer’s block.” To help with this, I’ve put together some advice from people I’ve encountered over the years—all of whom make their living writing so they can certainly empathize with you when this malady strikes.
Dan’s Writing Tricks
(from Dan Barden, professor at Butler University)
1. Writing for a little while each day is much easier than writing a lot once a week.
2. Exercise. The body is connected to the head. The head is where imagination lives. When the body is sluggish, so is the head.
3. Prayer and meditation. If you have a spiritual practice, use it. Walker Percy’s prayer for writing was, “I am starting from nothing. Help me.”
4. If something’s not working, try turning it on its head. Change some significant detail and notice if it works better that way. Be light on your feet. Don’t take yourself and your work so damn seriously.
5. When in doubt, remember: if you knew what you wanted to say, you wouldn’t have to write about it—you could just say it.
6. When you don’t know what else to do, recopy what you’ve written. There’s genius in your hand holding a pen. There’s genius in your fingertips on the keyboard.
7. Read as much as you can. Reading is like food to writing. Writing is also a version of reading. Great writers are always great readers.
8. Write about things you know, but if you don’t know about something, don’t let that stop you. You can learn about it while you’re writing about it. That’s what libraries and museums and smart friends are for.
9. Cultivate kooky interests. If your imagination wants to know more about naval aviation or fastpitch softball or Dean Martin’s youth in Ohio, by all means, let your imagination have what it wants.
10. Make friends with other writers. It takes a lot of courage to work every day, know what’s valuable in your work, and kill your babies.* You’ll need help.
*Barden is, of course, speaking metaphorically about editing and what it feels like to cut out parts of your writing that you may love dearly, but that still need to go.
Summarized from “Some Truths about Writing” published in the Writer Magazine
1. No matter how experienced a writer is, everyone has to work through their writing problems. The difference is that more experienced writers feel more confident in their ability to handle and overcome these problems because they have done it before. New writers need to find this same confidence.
2. Writers need someone they trust to read their writing who will critique it honestly and constructively. This is how real writers work.
3. Everyone stumbles now and then, gets hung up, has a gap in his writing, gets stalled, etc., but there is no such condition as “writer’s block.” It is not a real condition-merely a phrase used to cover difficulties in the writing process, difficulties that exist for everyone.
4. Everyone needs a break from writing. Doing something, especially something physical, helps clear your mind, relieve some stress, and lets your mind work on whatever problem you are having in your writing while you are paying attention to some other task. You get out of your own way. Just don’t forget to get back to writing.
5. Successful writers don’t talk about when they are going to write or what they are going to write. They spend their time writing instead.
6. Writers are always learning, always trying out new things, always looking for ways to improve.
A Plan for Block Writing based on David Taylor's article “A no-fret, no-sweat plan for getting it DONE”
This article, published in the Writer magazine, discusses how to use block writing to overcome fear, self-doubt, and procrastination. Hmm…not that those are ever related to “writer’s block”…Although Taylor suggests 45-60 minutes per block, you might try something shorter such as 20-30 minutes if that’s all you can commit to on a regular basis. It might take longer to get the writing done, but the principles should still hold true.
The Rules:
1. Divide your writing into blocks of time lasting from 45-60 minutes, each followed by a short break. The time you decide on should be consistent, so-always 45 or always 60; don’t flip flop. Treat your writing just like any other job you have to do. That’s what professional writers do. They show up to their jobs on a regular basis just like you do for whatever job you have that earns you your pay. Even though you are writing for a class, it’s helpful to think of writing in this way. The skills you have that make you successful in other areas of your life, many of them involving your job, will help you here, too.
2. Use an alarm or timer to keep track of the time so you aren’t constantly checking it. Try to focus on your writing at hand for the time you have set aside.
3. Once your posterior is in the chair, it stays there until the time is up. That doesn’t mean you have to be writing or typing furiously for that whole time, but checking e-mail or Facebook because you happen to be on the computer or writing out your grocery list…yeah, those aren’t activities directly related to your writing. There is a Buddhist saying that goes, “When walking, walk. When running, run. When sitting, sit. Above all else, do one thing at a time and do it well.” That’s what you should strive for here. Try to give your full attention to your writing for the amount of time you’ve set, and you will find that you are more productive and that the work is ultimately more enjoyable. I know this is a hard concept for some—ok, many—of us to master in our culture, but it is a skill worth working on.
4. Accept “the law of regularity.” Try to avoid goals for specific writing sessions (3 pages, 500 words, etc.). Realize that what is going to get the job done is sitting down on a regular basis and writing. Some sessions may be more “productive” in generating greater output/more measurable output than others. That’s ok. Don’t kvetch over the ones where you only get two sentences put together. Don’t be over joyous at one that goes particularly smooth. Both events occur for a reason that’s important to your writing, even if you can’t readily articulate what that is. Good grades are wonderful! Finished papers are too. However, it’s important to learn to take pride and satisfaction not only from our goals (whatever they are), but also from the process it took us to get there. Have you ever heard the saying, “Life is a journey not a destination?” Writing is the same way. If all you see is the end of the assignment, the end of the class, etc., you are missing out on a lot of good things the task and practice of writing can open up for you-both about communicating with others and discovering/refining important aspects about yourself.
5. Make a commitment. Just like any other skill you want to sharpen, any other goal you want to achieve, your level of commitment is going to dramatically affect your level of success. It doesn’t matter if you don’t “feel like” writing that day, how bright and sunny out it is, what cool thing your friends are doing, what crappy thing just happened in your life. Follow through on what you said you were going to do.
Discipline is divine-in writing as well as in other areas of life. Lots of talented people end up not doing much with that talent because they lack discipline. Lots of less talented, less smart, less (insert any adjective here) people end up going further in life because they are disciplined. And how many of us have made some sort of resolution in January only to backslide on what we’ve set as our goal? Think about how that made you feel about yourself and your ability to do something or follow through on a commitment to yourself.
Make your goal realistic-maybe 15 minutes at a time is all you can commit to. It’s better to be able to do that and follow through than to say to yourself that you are going to sit down and work for 30 minutes at a time and not be able to do that on a consistent basis. That is just going to add to feelings of doubt or failure you might already be associating with your writing, and who needs to do that to themselves? If you start small, it’s always a better feeling to be able to add more time, rather than to have to back away.
Value yourself and what you do as much as you do other people. If you’re the type of person who’d follow through on doing something for or with someone else once you’ve told them you would, hold yourself to the same standard when it comes to what you’ve said you’d do for yourself. Many of us have a hard time doing this because we tell ourselves “It’s only me. No big deal,” but what we are really doing is devaluing ourselves in our own eyes.
6. Stop worrying about what’s going to happen, how it’s going to happen, when will it happen, etc. and just trust that it will. Something important will happen in each session (see #4). Even if it doesn’t seem like a whole lot is happening when you first start block writing, the more you sit down and expect it to, the easier the process will become.
7. Have clearly defined limits. Stick to them. If you said you were going to write for 30 minutes, then you have to—and no changing the time once you sit down! Don’t let distractions or frustration be an excuse for quitting early.
8. Most people start feeling “writer’s block” in relation to some outside pressure. Realize, though, those imposed deadlines, expectations from others to get a certain grade, perform to a certain standard, etc. can be a good thing. They are motivation for getting the task done, for sticking with it when it’s hard. Writers who make their living through writing use this all the time. If they fail to meet a deadline, they don’t have money for the mortgage, for food, etc. Use your grades as the same type of motivation. Use it as a goal to work toward instead of something that intimidates you.
9. Have a clear focus of what steps you need to do to accomplish your writing. This is different from what is discussed in #4. While you shouldn’t put pressure on yourself to accomplish a specific goal in a certain amount of time (beyond your deadline for the assignment), you should have a clear idea of the steps you will need to go through to get a writing task accomplished. How do you turn that blank Word file into a clear, succinct essay? If you don’t know, then you need to find out. Many students and writers have good intentions of getting a piece of writing done, but stall out somewhere along the way because they simply don’t know what to do next-or they waste a good deal of time they’ve set aside for writing trying to figure out what that next step is rather than actually writing.
While this may seem contradictory to what was being said earlier in regards to not saying you wanted to write a specific number of pages or words in a block of time, it isn’t. You do need to have specific goals for a session. Do you want to work on the introduction? Revise your draft so the organization is clearer? Work on editing? Those all help you have a clearer focus on what task to accomplish so that your piece of writing is stronger at the end of the block of writing. They help you stay “on task” during your time, give you something measurable to assess how the writing went, break down the writing process so it’s a bit more manageable, and help you have a greater sense of accomplishment when it’s done. (And who doesn’t need more to feel good about when it comes to their writing?)
That’s different, though, than looking at outside conventions such as word or page count and using that as a focus of your writing. Think about it—so you’ve sat down and written 200 words…so what? Did that get you any closer to your end goal? Maybe. Maybe not. Not necessarily, but you have the 200 words, right? It’s sort of like if you want to eat healthier so you decide to count the calories of everything you eat and not exceed 2,000 per day. Ok, that’s a good start, but you could have 250 calories of fruit or 250 calories of donuts in the morning. Each is the same 250 calories, but we know that 250 calories of fruit is going to have a different impact on our diet and health than 250 calories worth of donuts so if the number is all we see, we are missing a vital part of the picture about how to make our health better. The same is true with writing. Something more needs to be going on in our discussions with ourselves to make sure those required words or pages we’ve come up with are the ones that really need to be there. Also, being able to break down the task of writing and to look at where you are with a piece and where you need to go and plan out how you will get there is an invaluable skill in itself that will ultimately lead to stronger writing. This isn’t a skill very many of us (if any) are born with, though. It’s something that is only acquired with much practice. It’s also important to know what your focus is going to be for a particular block of writing time before you begin. If you’ve set aside 15 minutes to write, you don’t want to spend 10 trying to figure out what you should be doing. That’s not a very productive use of time. A good habit to get into is as you hear the timer going off to end your block, wrap up what you are doing, and then before you shut down your computer or close your notebook, think about what the next logical step is in your writing. Jot that down somewhere you won’t lose it, and make that the focus of your next writing block.
10. Realize that you need to not only stick to time limits you’ve set as a minimum, but as a maximum amount of time as well. Although it varies with the individual, there comes a point in time where our productiveness, concentration, etc. starts diminishing sharply. (In fact many education classes teach that after 20 minutes, we're essentially done mentally.) Pushing yourself to continue beyond that point only leads to greater frustration and doubt about your abilities.
If you’ve scheduled 30 minutes to write, there may be times when you just need another five to finish up whatever thought you are on or when you are really on a roll and don’t want to stop; however, expecting to sit down in one huge block of time and churn out a draft as a regular course of practice is unrealistic. Unfortunately, it is an expectation many students have. Either because fear and/or procrastination has led them to develop this habit or because they have romantic ideas about how writing really works. You take breaks at work, when you study for other classes, etc. Writing is no different. Your mind needs that rest. And, as Barden and the article “Some Truths…” both say, taking a break and doing something else frees up your mind to work on your writing without you getting in the way. Also, once you come back to your writing after a break, you will see it differently, usually from a more objective perspective. This is why having a set schedule to write in blocks helps. You have time scheduled to allow yourself the ability to do this rather than waiting until the night before or a couple of hours before something is due and having to scramble to get something, anything done.
Parting Shot
I'm a big believer in the theory that those of us in education have contributed at least in part to the malady of writer's block that befalls our students from time to time. Systematically as they have moved through the educational system, we've taught them that the writing process is very linear, very neat and tidy. Students are often taught that they need to come up with a topic (or use one provided), figure out what they have to say about it through prewriting, write a draft, turn it in to the instructor, get feedback, "fix it" per the instructors editing marks/comments, and turn in the final draft a few days later. Many students don't really understand the difference between editing and revision. They are shocked to discover that it's ok, heck sometimes it's even desirable to sit down to write with no idea what you are going to write, that it's valid for your whole goal to be to discover what that is through the process of actually writing. It's ok for your final draft to be drastically different in content, organization, etc. from the rough draft. Some students are shocked to discover that getting ideas down in a rough draft is just that, getting them down, down on the paper where they are outside your head and you can look at them. It's a starting point. Hopefully, it is at least somewhat coherent (and you should do your best to make it so), but the draft doesn't have to be perfect. Nor is the job of "drafting" done. There may be gaps. You may have to go back to the invention stage and gather more ideas, more possibilities. Your instructor may ask that you get rid of two pages of content that don't really belong before the final draft. You may need to completely change your slant or even your topic. This does not necessarily speak to your ability as a writer or as a student. It doesn't mean you've suddenly "forgotten" how to write because you are now being asked to do these things if you never have been before. It also doesn't mean you won't make it through a particular class or assignment if you find yourself struggling. Writing is messy. Writing is ugly. Done well, though, it is extremely rewarding-both when your realize someone "gets it" (whatever "it" is that you are trying to articulate) and from your own sense of accomplishment.
A good deal of your work may never "show up" in the final draft, not in an obvious way, anyhow. Not in a way that is apparent to your reader. Many students feel this is somehow a "waste." It isn't. You can't get to this point (the final draft) without going through all of the others that lead up to it, and think about it--what is one of the greatest compliments people often pay to others when they can do something well? That they make it look easy or effortless--which does not mean that it really is. If you really hone your skills, that's how your writing will appear to those who read it. It takes a lot of work to get there, though, and frankly, many students arrive in a college classroom without a realistic idea of that. It seems as if writing is "easy" for those who are "good" at it, those who've unlocked the mystical, mythical secrets of the writing process. And, therefore, as that line of logic goes, if it isn't easy for you, that must mean you aren't good at it. All of this adds to or helps create a mental petrie dish where writer's block can thrive.
Anne Lamott is a writer from California who writes a little about writing, a little about life, and a whole lot about how the two are mashed up with one another. Lamott addresses quite a few topics in her book, Bird by Bird. One chapter that I would particularily recommend to students who suffer from writer's block would be "Shitty First Drafts." In it, she discusses the myth of the great first draft and why, in fact, those that aren't so great are valuable-even perhaps desirable. You can access it here: http://buddha-rat.squarespace.com/shittyfirstdrafts/.
Good luck with your writing, and remember, the best way to get over your writer's block is to be proactive in trying to prevent it and figuring out a way to manage it once it strikes. Use these tips to help you, and if you need it, drop by the Writers' Room to talk with one of the tutors. A good deal of writing problems, as with many problems in life, are solved by talking about them. Tutors can help mentor you through the writing process or through parts of it that you are finding particularily difficult.
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