The Sure-Fire Way to Overcome Writer's Block EVERY TIME
Well...most of the time.
Obviously, I experienced writer’s block in its many forms, in many contexts, long before I called myself a writer. I wrote most of my college papers between midnight and 9 a.m., on the day they were due. Whenever I sit down to write, I usually understand that I won’t be productive for the first few hours—not exactly a block, but an orientation I must perform every session, to mentally prepare myself for hours of hyperfocused loquacity. But I didn’t really understand writer’s block until I was writing novels.
A Case Study
My first major block occurred in late Spring of 2020, when I had used up the runway of my first story, as it existed in my head, plus the excess momentum generated by the process of writing the story down. I was at a crossroads in the main plot—I knew, generally, where it was going—, but to continue, I needed to work out the lore that underpinned my story and my world. For weeks, I tried to push forward, putting down very few words, as every new scene felt like an exercise in futility.
Then, one day, I cleared off my giant whiteboard and started…plotting. This does not come naturally to me, but I started by writing down all of the knowns and unknowns of my story, then annotating and organizing them until I had a clearer idea of how the elements might all come together in the arc of the series as a whole. From there, it became much easier to fill in the blanks: the events that needed to happen to connect what I had already written with where the story was going.
It sounds so easy, now—and, really, it was! It was the work of a single night. But that night was the night I overcame the block, and it is less interesting to me than the days I spent staring at my computer, trying to pump out words and producing only a trickle of narrative. In all, I think the block lasted about a month—a month when I could have been writing, had I not stalled on the project of plotting. So why didn’t I bust out my whiteboard the moment I sensed the narrative had stalled?
Well, that first time, I wasn’t entirely clear on what had stopped me. It wasn’t until I went through the same sequence again, several months later, that I understood.
The Monumental Prospect of Making Something Perfect
I mentioned in my post about what makes a writer that I had many ideas for stories before I finally wrote one down. What held me back was a fear of wasting time: I did not want to expend the effort writing a full novel that I might never able to put out into the world. I still undertook that project, trying to connect with people through my words (the same project driving this substack), in other ways. L&L is not my first blog. I wrote reviews for Rotten Tomatoes, when their community was still small, and the site was relatively obscure. I participated more on social media, seeking out communities where I could absorb the perspectives of others and share my own.
But I did not write a novel. More than being afraid of wasting my time, I was terrified of being unable to create what I envisioned. I have shared this quote before (and I will undoubtedly share it again), but I think this fear is best encapsulated in the quote from Jane Eyre, “I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was quite powerless to realise.” In this quote, Jane is explicitly talking about her art, which Mr. Rochester is examining. He comments upon its strange quality—Jane’s paintings are amateur, but they are also fantastical in their subjects. Jane has tried to craft a fantasy world, drawing solely from her imagination. And her audience is commenting upon the unsuitability of her art in the society which she inhabits.
By the time I first read this, I had already taken the art class that I mentioned in that same post about being a writer—and I had discovered my limitations as an artist. When I studied Film, I was similarly daunted by the collaborative nature of the craft—realizing your vision as a director is only possible for the most accomplished and successful artists. I was scared away from pursuing Film as a career, knowing that I would have to work for a very long time (and would need to rely on a lot of luck) before I could approach anything resembling authorship.
How many endeavors was I scared away from by my own sense of powerlessness as an artist?
Fear Is the Mindkiller
When I wrote my first book, I deliberately discarded any notion of perfection. I underlined words that didn’t feel right, rather than stopping to find the correct ones, and I left little underscores as blanks, when the word or image was just missing at the moment. Sometimes, I used extremely literal and clunky phrases to describe what I was going for, when the words to express it properly were just not available that session. When I felt a scene was missing something—but I was unsure what to add—, I wrote, “[MORE],” and moved on. I set aside the fear that my work would be inadequate, as a problem to be solved later.
The thing about writing is, it’s a distraction. If you are churning out 10k words in a writing session, you feel like you are doing something, and you don’t have to worry whether that something is worth the effort. It’s fun, and it feels good. But when you hit a story block, you can’t churn out 10k words. You can’t distract yourself from the questions: where is this story going? What is it saying? Will that message eventually resonate with an audience? Will it even find an audience? These are the questions that drive artists—they’re why many artists create almost obsessively. But when the creative flow dries up, and only the sticky residue of questions is left, they can quickly become a morass that traps the writer, paralyzes the writer with fear.
Why am I even doing this?
Every time I found myself with writer’s block, this was the case—I was still trying to avoid thinking about the questions, by mustering other, tangential distractions. Should I spend my writing session editing the first book instead? Should I be trying to pitch that book, or self-publish? Should I start writing a new story, because clearly this one is dead in the water? Should I give up on writing, because I’m obviously not good at it? I became so swamped with fear that I did not know how to move forward with the process.
Once I learned to recognize this cycle, it became so much easier. The trick was not to keep pushing through, or to take a break—although both were viable actions. But first, I needed to confront the specific fear that was hampering my creative flow, and address it, before I could move forward with my current project. Fear really is the mindkiller—it is the thing that defeats our creative endeavors before we begin them. The process of writing teaches you about writing—it teaches you how to overcome story blocks, how to connect plot threads, and how to craft a coherent message. But you will never learn these things if you allow fear to stop you from continuing…or from ever starting.