Writers block. Just seeing the words sends most writers into nervous convulsions. A lot of people will tell you there is no cure and I think most people believe this because it is easier to fail and say you had no hope. None of us want to fail and know we could have succeeded if we hadn't been so god damn lazy (even when it is true).

Writers block, in its essence, is just like fear. Facing your fears is hard, so is writing when you have writers block. I have overcome fear and I have overcome writers block. The secret behind both is bloody well getting on with it.

Both are psychological conditions. You are no less physically capable of writing when you have writers block, it’s all in the mind, but sometimes it takes a lot of hard work to get your head around the idea.
 
The secret is training. You must train yourself to write, what you want, when you want. Not when the muse decided to drop her magic fairy dust in your coffee. Don't even ask me what I think that fairy dust comprises of, you won't like the answer.

To overcome writers block you must set yourself writing exercises. Even when you don’t want to be writing. You will always think of an excuse not to write. You have a headache, you should wash the dishes, Big Brother is on, you’re bleeding profusely from a shallow laceration on your thigh and slowly loosing consciousness… but all of these are excuses! If the laceration was bleeding that much you’d have called an ambulance already.

Just go and do the damn writing exercise.

However! You must not make the writing exercises too hard. They need to be simple, short and reasonably interesting. Otherwise you will want to do them even less and make the problem worse.

I will give a few examples of writing exercises. I can not promise they will be exercises of any level of quality, but they’re substantially better than being kicked in the teeth by a mule.


1) Describe the room/cafe/office/train you are in using only sounds and colours.

2) Describe the room you are in with EXACTLY 300 words.

3) Think up a silly news story and write a fictional script for the news reader. It should take no more than 30 seconds to read out loud.

4) Describe a beautiful field full of flowers at dawn, with dew and bird song. Then describe the same field and paint all those beautiful things in a negative light. Cold, wet dew, poor light, hay fever causing flowers etc.

5) Write a clear, concise description of a main character with an obvious quirk. Include gestures, description, manner and location with no dialogue or action. Give a strong feeling for the character. Don't name them.

6) Describe an inanimate object. Use lots of descriptive words; make it as interesting as possible.

7) Create strong atmosphere (creepy/relaxed/lonely) however you like. No word limit.

Do any of these, or make up your own, as often as you can. Writers block can be over come, but it takes time and a lot of effort. It's about doing something you really don't want to because you are tired, sore or cleaning vomit off the bathroom floor.

There is no magic wand. Just hard work and that, my friends, is all there is to it.

Good luck.

 

Copyright Talitha Mitchell. 2003.