How to Overcome Writer's Block

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By georgelarson
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Experiencing writer's block?

Writer's block is a temporary loss of a writer's ability to begin or continue writing, usually due to lack of inspiration or creativity. This phenomenon will happen to all writers from professional writers to students writing an essay paper. The is no cure for writer's block yet there are alternative actions or specific strategies you can work with to fill in that blank slate in your head.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Creative ways to think outside the box.
Quiet time to think.
Busy times to let your brain be creative again.

Step 1

--Overcome Writer's Block - 8 Alternative Actions--

Take a break and relax. There are many things you can do to let your thoughts gather themselves. Did you know that some of the most unrelated activities allow you to start producing meaningful ideas?

1. Taking a shower or bath or sit in a sauna or hot tub. Psychologists do say water has a mentally cleansing and stimulating quality.

2. Take a 30-60 minute drive by yourself (remember to bring paper or a tape recorder, just in case). Getting away and listening to the monotonous sounds of your tires on the pavement kicks in the creativity after 30 minutes.

3. Give yourself a chance to take a quick nap. These are the moments, during your pre- or post-sleep, that are great for ideas and thoughts to float around in your head.

4. Boring times. Minds wander to more creative thoughts while activities begin to become too long. Make sure you have something to document them.

5. Reading other materials unrelated to what you are working on. Look at pictures in or flip backwards through a magazine. You may read even one word that can spark an idea.

6. Take a walk around your neighborhood, a park, or at the beach and watch everything that is going on around you. Cut your grass or work in your garden to get you outside and thinking about something else. This allows your mind to wander and become creative.

7. Although not planned and usually very annoying, when you wake up in the middle of the night some of your best ideas are wanting to come out. Have paper (and a flashlight) by your bed or sneak to your PC. Write them down as soon as you can or those ideas may keep you up all night.

8. The old stand-by that will work over and over again - Take a clean sheet of paper or a blank screen, start writing, and keep writing. It does not matter what you write but do not stop for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes read what you wrote. You either came up with an idea to work with, you were able to get all the extra 'stuff' out of your head, or you came up with other ideas to write about at a later time. Now you can start writing again.
Step 2

--Writer's Block - 6 Specific Strategies To Overcome It--
1. Begin at the end. Wherever you are stuck you know where you wanted to get to. Write the end of that thought, chapter, or dialogue and work you way back.

2. Change the audience. This creative block strategy will help you clarify the purpose of what you are writing. Pretend you need to explain your topic slowly and in great detail to a child or someone new to the topic or debate with someone who strongly disagrees with you and defend your ideas. An entire new set of ideas may com out during this strategy.

3. Talk the paper. Find someone who is willing to talk to you about the topic you are writing about. This is a more spontaneous way to communicate and you will be less stressed. Your listener can ask questions or interject their thoughts. If you can record the conversation so you don't have to stop and write something down during the conversation.

4. Play a role. See your topic from the point of view of someone from an earlier time period, a President of a company defending your topic, or someone who wants your topic to just go away and you need to tell them why it is important. Take yourself out of your comfort zone and into a different perspective to see your topic from a different point of view.
Step 3

--Overcome Writers Block-- 5. Tape what you are writing. If there is no one to talk with imagine that their is an audience and tape yourself either reading what you've written or ramble on about the topic. Transcribe your session and work with the new ideas you came up with.

6. Stop and do more research. Combat the feeling of not knowing what to say by finding more information about your topic. What are others saying about it? Doing research is a great way to gather ore thoughts, ideas and may even get you to start the entire section, that you were blocked on, from the beginning.