Eight Ways to Beat Writer’s Block

Writing is a lot of fun, but can also be kind of a struggle.

Especially if you’ve gotten yourself into a negative headspace about something, it’s hard to get words on the page or revise them.

In this post, I’m going to talk about some strategies you can use to get past that feeling, commonly called “writer’s block.”

Is Writer’s Block Real?

Writer’s block is kind of a catch-all phrase writers use to describe any time they’re having difficulty writing.

People like to talk about writer’s block as if it’s some well-defined specific ailment, but — at least for me — I haven’t found that to be accurate. Instead, I tend to think of writer’s block as a symptom of some underlying issue, and not in itself the root cause that needs to be solved.

For example:

• Are you burnt out from writing too much?
• Did you read a great story that was similar to your own?
• Is something in your life making it hard for you to focus on anything?
• Did you get a negative response from a critiquer?
• Is your imposter syndrome flaring up?
• Are you troubled by the fact that you are secretly three dachshunds in a trenchcoat?

And so on. There are any number of things that can lead to writers being discouraged about their work and experiencing something like writer’s block. Because of this, it makes more sense to me to figure out what that underlying issue is, and try to fix that.

Of course, as they say on the Internet, the struggle is real. Whether you consider writer’s block to be a monolithic ailment with a single cure or just the symptom of something else, the end result is the same: the act of writing becomes a bitter struggle as you stare at that blank page for hours.

When writer’s block strikes, it’s easy to tell yourself you’re a failure as a writer and a human being, but neither of those are true. Writer’s block is perfectly normal, established authors deal with it all the time, and it certainly doesn’t mean anything at all about your worth or value as a person (neither of which are, spoiler alert, in fact tied to your writing and productivity).

So, how can you get past writer’s block? Here are eight different methods that sometimes work for me. If you’re stuck, try one or more and see if they help!

One: Fix the Underlying Cause

If you like my take on writer’s block as a catch-all phrase that stands in for any number of other problems, one approach is to figure out what those other problems are and try to resolve them.
Of course, this is easier said than done. Some problems are pretty hard to solve, and there’s no guarantee that fixing anything will get rid of your inability to write.

All the same, if you’re experiencing writer’s block because you’re stressed about something in real life, it’s not a bad idea to try and take care of whatever it is that’s bothering you. If you’re lucky, doing that will help you write again. And even identifying that the problem is outside your writing can be a relief, which might relieve some of the pressure your brain is putting on itself to produce “good” writing.

As an example, let’s take “Did you read a great story that was similar to your own?” from our list of bullet points in section above.

Let’s say you’ve finally been getting into the groove with your brand new, soon-to-be-award-winning-assuming-you-finish-it novel about eighteen rabbits flying fighter pilots in a rebellion against the cruel fox overlords that have taken over a far-future terraformed Mars.

I mean, what a concept, right? How could it not be the best thing ever written?

PUMPED!

And then you see someone on Twitter gushing about this rabbit space pirate novel they’re reading by a multiple award winning, NYT bestselling auhor that everybody loves, and, well…

Oomph.

The next time you sit down to write — a climactic scene, where plucky young rebel Marigold is finally about to face off against the haughty, hungry Duchesse de Renarde — words fail you. You stare at that blank word document, the wind knocked right out of your (solar) sails.

There’s a pretty good chance in this case that your writer’s block is actually tied to anxieties about overlap between your in-progress work and a well-respected author’s already-published novel.

Once you realize that, it might be easier to move forward: even if you’re still upset, you have new strategies you can look to, things like focusing on the differences rather than the similarities, and other ways you can make your own writing stand out. Method three, “kick perfectionism to the curb” is probably also good in situations like this.

The bottom line is that figuring out what’s really bothering you and resolving that, instead of beating your head against the vague and menacing spectre of writer’s block, can be one good way to move forward.

And who knows! By the time you come back to your manuscript after some time off to figure out other problems, maybe you’ll feel refreshed and ready to tackle the words on the page even if that other problem still bothers you.

Two: Find Joy in Something You’ve Written

Let’s take another look at anxieties.

Maybe your writer’s block doesn’t come from an external source, but a general feeling of disappointment at perceptions about your own ability. If the words flowing from your fingers (or not) are getting you down, take a moment to go back through other things you’ve written.

Have a published story? Great! Take a read through it, break out that notebook and pen and write out your favourite line from it. Add the story title and your byline to make it official-looking and fancy, and tack it up near your workspace if you want to.

Or just bask in the glow of “Hey, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Haven’t been published yet? That’s okay, you’ll get there!

Find the thing that brings you joy about your writing and focus on that.

And you can still do this exercise. Just look through something you’ve already written for the best parts, and proceed as above. Even if you’re writing your very first story, there’s probably something you can find in what you’ve done so far that brings you joy. Failing anything else, think up something clever now and write it down.

Maybe it’s not even a line — maybe your characters bring you joy, or the idea of a particular scene. Find the thing that brings you joy about your writing and focus on that for a minute, then get back to the writing with that energy in mind.

Take that, writer’s block!

Three: Kick Perfectionism to the Curb

One big thing I struggle with in my own writing is perfectionism.

I’m the sort of writer who pays attention to the flow of my sentences, and likes a little bit of lyrical poetry (even when it seems like I’m just writing goofy nonsense). That means it’s easy for me to get bogged down in specific details, especially in a first draft.

Even if you don’t write the same way I do, it’s really easy to get writer’s block if you obsess over how different the vision you hold in your head is from what you’re writing down on the page. And first drafts can be particularly problematic.

Remember Hemingway? He famously said that “the first draft of anything is shit.”

Nobody writes perfect first drafts.

Unlike the 6-word story thing it’s possible that this is an actual Hemingway quote, too. Or at least derived from something he said. After some digging, and a bit of librarian-like frustration at the lack of accurate citations on the Internet, I had a stroke of luck: Aron Roberts pointed me to this great analysis on Quote Investigator, a website run by Garson O’Toole which puts the origin of the quote in advice given to another writer, Arnold Samuelson, in the 1930s.

A related quote (which proves Hemingway loved using the word ‘shit’ when talking about writing) is an interview in Issue 18 of The Paris Review (1958), where he says that “the most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit-detector.”

Hemingway digressions aside, this is worth reiterating: nobody writes perfect first drafts.

Think back to our SMART goals from lesson one. The whole idea is to break down a huge, daunting, impressive goal into tiny, manageable chunks, not do everything perfectly from the start. (Again: that’s impossible. Don’t try.)

Acknowledging (or accepting) that untramelled genius isn’t going to flow from your fingertips and into your manuscript as soon as you start drafting can sometimes help you to get rid of writer’s block. Giving yourself permission to write a shitty first draft can work, too.

After all, you can always revise a terrible first draft. You can’t even do that with an idea that’s still in your head. Focus on getting words down, not on proving how awesome a writer you “should” be. (Spoiler alert: lots of awesome writers also write terrible first drafts.)

Four: Take a Break

If none of the techniques above are getting you past your writer’s block, ask yourself if you just need a break.

I know there’s the idea out there that “real writers” write every day, no matter what.

Frankly, holding to that ideal can harm both your self-esteem and your ability to write.

Do some writers write every day, no matter what? Absolutely! And good for them. It’s nice to do it if you can.

Do you have to? Absolutely not.

The phrase “real writer,” incidentally, is garbage.

If anyone starts a sentence with “real writers,” you have my permission to ignore the rest of what they say unless it’s “Real writers are much more complicated than hedgehogs” or something.

Seriously, there’s no such thing as a “real” writer. The status of “writer” is based on practice, not “number of publications” or “has an Amazon page” or some other equally arbitrary qualification. (I see this especially leveraged against non-male, non-white writers, and it ticks me off every time!)

If you’re writing, have written, or are going to write, guess what you are? You’re a writer. Even if you are dealing with writer’s block, that doesn’t change anything.

Anyway, plenty of published authors I know don’t write every day. I sometimes go weeks at a time without putting down words. A friend of mine just started writing again after a two year break. Ernest Hemingway has been dead since 1961 and apparently he still comes back to writing for the occasional inspirational quote.

Life happens, and it’s okay to take a break. Even if life isn’t happening and you’re just not feeling it today, that’s fine. You’ll come back to it some other time, and then you’ll write. (Even if you don’t, life will go on, I promise you.)

Take a little time off to relax and practice some self-care instead of obsessing over productivity, and see if your writer’s block clears up the next time you sit down to write. You might just find that all you needed was a little distance from your work.

Five: Power through It

Sometimes, of course, the opposite to method four holds true.

While you don’t need to write every day, you do need to write sometimes. It’s just a matter of numbers. While you can write a complete novel in a year at 250 words a day (250 * 365 = 91,250), you can’t even write a single piece of flash fiction at 0 words a day no matter how long you do it for (0 * any arbitrary large number = well… 0).

Again, don’t stress about this.

But sometimes you do need to put words on the page. If you’re a “mind over matter” kind of person, forcing yourself to write even though you hate every word of it can sometimes work to beat writer’s block. At least you wrote something, even if it was terrible.

I often find that after the fact I don’t hate stuff quite as much, anyway. Or, if I’m being perfectly honest, that I hate things I loved when I was writing them about as much as stuff I hated writing.

The bottom line is: nobody can tell if you think your work is amazing or terrible, and what you think about it usually doesn’t line up with what readers do.

So if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t mind mechanically doing things you hate, you can try to power through it. I really wouldn’t recommend this approach unless you know you’re that kind of person, though. Forcing yourself to write when you hate it can lead to burnout.

Six: [Apply Brackets]

For longer stories and novels, I follow a pretty weird writing process.

I don’t just sit down with my outline, start at the first scene, and write through to the end. Actually, I often write the ending scene before I’ve finished most of the novel. I’m not afraid to jump around, either, especially if I’m getting stuck on a particular scene.

So if you think your writer’s block might be coming from the particular part of the story you’re writing, or if you find that your wheels are spinning over some detail — no matter how major it is — allow me to introduce you to your new best friend: the [bracket].

Can’t figure out the average air speed velocity of a laden swallow? Just stick [speed] in there!

Facing a blockage because you can’t come up with a perfect name for your character? [name1] to the rescue!

This trick is infinitely flexible, up to the point where you can bracket off a whole scene to yourself to come back to later, if it helps you move past a point that’s causing you writer’s block.

You could also use parentheses for this, of course. But square brackets are convenient because you can run for [ and hop to the next thing that needs fixing when it’s time to revise. This is also why professional editors use TK to mark things that need to be fixed. Neither a square bracket or the combination TK is likely to appear in your manuscript file elsewhere.

Just remember that you will need to fill in your brackets eventually. I can’t count the number of times I’ve cursed past me because he’s left me a note like [insert clever dialogue here] halfway through the climactic scene of a new story.

Really, past-me? That’s the best you could do?! Ugh, past selves.

Seriously, though. Bracketing off something you can’t figure out can free you up to move forward with your story. Again, the goal is to get something down and fix it up later, not write perfection.

Seven: Remember Why You’re Writing

This is similar to method number two.

Again, the idea is to remind yourself why you’re doing this.

If you’re a goal-motivated person, just taking a moment to explicitly pull those goals up and remind yourself that there’s something waiting for you after you make it through everything can be enough to banish writer’s block.

Of course, if your anxieties about writing are at the root of your problem, or you’re the sort of person to obsess over every last thing that will keep you from your goals, this can backfire. So apply with caution! (See also: the next method in this list.)

Eight: Be the Friend

It sounds a little hokey, but think of what you’d say to a friend who came to you with writer’s block, or to express insecurities about their writing.

Would you say, “Well yeah, you’re garbage and so is everything you write LOLOL DON’T QUIT YOUR DAYJOB!”

Hopefully, no. No you would not. (If you answered “yes,” please re-examine your life choices!)

So don’t let yourself get away with talking to yourself in such a negative way. Remind yourself that it’s okay to not be at the top of your game all the time. That your worth as a person doesn’t depend on your ability to puts words on a blank page, or revise ones that are already there. Practice a little self-care. Build yourself up instead of putting yourself down.

Low self-esteem sucks, and can definitely impact your writing, so try this out if you’re the sort of person who’s pessimistic about your own abilities.

Or take a break, if you think it’d be helpful. Think about writer’s block, and come up with a plan for what you might do if it ever strikes you.

Next week, we’re going to build on our strong start — and the flash story you’ve been writing — by learning about the art of short fiction critiquing.