On Writing - All Blocked Up

I’ve been sat staring at a blank screen for days now. No, scratch that – it’s been weeks. I’ve seen various deadlines come and go. And I’ve got at least 15 pages on my Notes app, where I’ve typed two or three words about a topic but that’s it.

I thought I had my idea for this article sorted – I was going to dive in to the world of tenses (hands up, I never realised there were 12 of them), but then when I couldn’t get past the first sentence (apart from a bad joke about the article leaving me so tense I was going to need a massage) I thought I would change direction and write about dialogue. But that subject wasn’t speaking to me either (urgh, I hate myself for that pun).

I’m the same at work – I’ve got papers on all sorts of weird and wonderful(ly dull) things to write about, to convince the powers that be to give me money to do exciting things with; yet my pages are blank. I can’t even muster up a whizzy PowerPoint image.

So I guess I have to say hello to my first proper case of “writer’s block”. Having never really experienced this before, I’ve been a little unsure about how to tackle it. I couldn’t really believe I had nothing to write about – after all, I have a list of inane things from everyday life that I’m constantly adding to, on the basis that I will create witty and sarcastic blogs on them at some point. I’ve also got what feels like hundreds of half started articles in my head (they often come to me just as I’m drifting off to sleep and I convince myself that I’ll definitely remember them in the morning – especially that funny line about the sausage. Of course, I never do…)

In an effort to drag myself through the barren wasteland that is my brain, I’ve taken to the internet to try to find out more.

There are, according to some Yale researchers back in the 70’s, four main triggers of writer’s block. Not being the sort of person to do things by halves, let’s see how many I can tick off:

1. Apathy – feeling constrained by the “rules” of writing and not being able to find your creative spark. Tick – that creative spark feels like a dodgy lighter brought from the marketplace at the moment. Just as I think I’ve got something, poof, the idea is gone, and I’m left staring into space again.

   
   

2. Anger – the “look at me” people, who get annoyed when their work goes unnoticed. Tick-ish – I’m not annoyed, just more saddened when I refresh the stats on my website and realise it’s had less traffic than George Street on a Saturday

   
   

3. Anxiety – the writer who doesn’t think their work is good enough. Tick – my anxiety and imposter syndrome are the only things keeping me going through the day sometimes.

   
   

4. Issues with others – the fear of comparison to others.Tick-ish – I’m constantly on tenterhooks waiting for someone to accuse me of plagiarism.

   
   

Knowing what’s causing writers block is one thing – the next is to work through the solutions that those brainy professors came up with.

• Take a break and return to it in a few days, weeks or months. Fingers crossed I don’t end up in the months category.

  
  

• Jump ahead to another part of your article or work. This might work if I was writing a longer piece, but it’s pretty difficult when you’re working on a 750-wordcount.

  
  

• Create a deadline for yourself. HA

  
  

• Do something else. This, I can definitely do - we all know I’m the master of distraction (see my “On the Writer’s Block” article from Veracity #48)

  
  

• Do something mundane – make your brain go on autopilot and let your creative side daydream. Just remember not to distract yourself by watching something on your phone at the same time.

  
  

• Free write – without worrying about grammar, spelling, or if it makes sense. It’ll be unusable but at least I’ll be writing.

And in some weird way – that is exactly how this article came about. I started this page by free writing (amongst other things) “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO WRITE”, and look, a couple of hours later and I’ve managed to create something from nothing. Complete with a handy bit of guidance that I hope others experiencing the torment of writer’s block might find useful too!

First published in Veracity Magazine (edition 51), February 2024, the in-house magazine for Verulam Writers