Writer’s Block

Writer’s block is widely debated from writer to writer. For me, it means I can’t change that blank page into a page full of scribbles. It can be intimidating and potentially shock you back into not writing at all. When I was in one of these spaces, I was introduced to ‘The Writing Book’ by Kate Grenville.

Anything that prevents you getting those first words on the page has to be avoided. High expectations and thinking about the finished product rather than the task at hand can have a paralysing effect on those first words.

Grenville makes a great point. It is a heavy, ‘paralysing’ feeling of the white page. The pressure to create art so wonderful that you want to share it with others, to have it published, or to be a part of your major project. But there is nothing else we can do than just write. 

There’s a time to think about the story as a whole. There’s a time to ask yourself what your story is about, or what it means. here’s a time to demand the best of yourself. But the time to do those things is not at the beginning. At the beginning, the only thing that matters is to get some words, any words on the paper.

When first starting any piece, it can be comfortable to know where you are going with it. And for some people, this works. To have a clear direction, intention and structure. For others, the weight of knowing what the end product will look like stops the creation of the art itself. In this case, it is best to write. It is a trust in yourself to write badly, to write anything, in order to get to that place of asking ‘so what do I want this to be?’

My university professor gave our class an exercise that helped us launch our major writing projects further. It looks like this:

‘Notes from a small planet’

 

In one column you write what you already know about this piece. The world, setting, characters, timeline, and so on. In the other column, you write what you don’t know. Setting in scene X, the character intention of X in act two, etc. The point of this task is to be easy and forgiving on yourself. Writing two simple lists is easier than thinking through the whole plot. After writing it out, think of it as a checklist. You can choose to go in and look at the things that need work, or look at it as a whole and see what main ideas are coming out.  This is a great task to be easy on yourself, and to see what you need to do.

There are a lot of reasons as to why you’re experiencing writer’s block. The most important thing to do is create, create it badly and give yourself the space and acceptance to be bad at it, and to slowly get better.

Sometimes our minds are full of voices, whispering advice to us about how to write. They drown out the voice of our own mind which, at this stage, needs all the encouragement it can get.

Grenville says it pretty well, those critical voices can be more of a creative halt than a useful critic, and sometimes we need to let them go. When writer’s block comes around, I’ll be writing utter rubbish and smiling about it knowing that it’s okay. I hope you will be too.