Even the best of us have it. When you’re creating a work of writing, you often reach points where you’re unable to continue the flow of your original thought. Does this mean that your writing career and future are over? No, of course not! I want to use this short blog to explain a couple ways of powering through writer’s block.
First, it can be helpful to identify where you are in your outline, and what needs to follow. Just because you’re not able to add insight to a particular area at the moment doesn’t mean that you need to entirely stop. By focusing on the area surrounding the topic, you can continue to move forward, and recognize that you can come back to it. Having an outline is especially helpful because you know where your story, blog-post, documentary culminates, meaning that you broadly know where you are going. You can magnify the outline, and finalize the prose at different points, which allows you to approach writing from different lenses at different stages.
Another approach that can often help writer’s block is to change mediums temporarily. If you need to hear yourself talk about the work, it might be valuable to record yourself talking about the subject matter. Similarly, white-boarding a chain of ideas may also help you find clarity about what to do next. Another medium that’s often helpful is a notepad, where you can sketch your ideas, combining drawing and handwriting. It can also help to free-write without the structures you normally build, and then go-back and refit the ideas to the narrative you want to build. Finally, sometimes a trusted friend can be a soundboard to help embellish and enliven your ideas, as you consider a different perspective. Switching up the medium can help because sometimes the message may not be conveyed as easily through all channels.
One final approach that I use to get started is to eliminate the things that get in the way of writing better. For instance, I remove all distractions, including my phone from an area, set a timer for 20 minutes, and see where I’m at. After the 20 minutes, I evaluate and see if I’ve made any progress. The other part of this that can also help is to take breaks when you’re feeling overwhelmed. If you nurture an environment where writing is easy in general, each instance of writing becomes easier to do. In a similar vein, writing regularly helps you become a lot better. So, writing often, writing prompts, and writing exercises can all help.
Generally speaking, writing blocks come from not knowing what to do next. As your instincts improve from writing more, writing blocks tend to shrink and fade away. Happy writing!
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