So here we are. You’ve sat down in front of your computer, cracked your knuckles, splayed your fingers across the keyboard, and then you realize it-you have no idea what you’re going to write. Admittedly, I sat down to write this article hours before any words came to me. I stared at a blank screen, facetimed my sister, tried to play my guitar, and even considered giving my dog a bath (that didn’t really work out for either of us).
Writer’s block is a common issue for everyone, so if you feel like you should give up, you shouldn’t. It happens to the best of us, and is never permanent no matter how long it may feel. The longest bout of writer’s block I ever experienced spanned over three months and after it, I wrote some of my proudest work, so rest assured, while annoying and disheartening, writer’s block surely doesn’t mean you should stop working on your next great American Novel.
Since that long dark period of three months of writer’s block just a few months ago, I have developed methods to help jog my creativity. Remember, I did face a short bout of writer’s block just before I began writing this article, and here I am writing an article on writer’s block, but this is beside the point.
We should first establish where your writer’s block came from. Oftentimes, I will work on large projects (creative or not) and find myself in a rut due to my own story. Perhaps the plot has gone awry and I don’t want to fix it, perhaps I have introduced a character that no longer makes sense to the story, perhaps I have no idea how to begin an article or I know what I want to say and I don’t know how. There are a slew of possibilities, but it’s important to know how your writer’s block came to be, and I assure you, there’s usually a reason even when you don’t feel like there is. In our current climate, there are a ton of reasons you could be experiencing writer’s block, but fear not, I have a few ways that might help you get out of your rut.
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Listen to Music
If you’re anything like me, music is included in almost every aspect of your life. If you’re in the shower, taking a walk, exercising, or even studying, music is on. Multiple studies have proven that music helps stimulate the mind and I am a firm believer in this. Personally, I listen to music when I write anyway for multiple reasons: One, if a lyric strikes my attention, it is sure that a scene will be inspired by it. Two; the instrumentation of a music can heavily influence the pace of a scene. For example, a slow burning cinematic tune like, “Nothing Without You”, by Tanerélle may warrant a slow coming to terms scene, while “Realer” by Megan Thee Stallion could serve as the backdrop to a high octane fight scene. Instead of using music as background noise, feed into it. Listen to the instrumentation. Close your eyes and let the music take you someplace. Shatter the barriers in your mind and allow your mind to free fall while you listen. This tip works with any kind of writing but I’ve found that it works best with creative writing. If you’re stuck on a scene or just flat out can’t think of anything to write, find a good playlist with lyrics or without, and let the music drive your storytelling.
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Watch a Movie or Series
I’ve found watching movies or TV helps tremendously when it comes to trying to cure writer’s block. Where music is almost a blind guide to helping you write your scenes or articles, or literally anything in between, movies serve two purposes. One; Movies and TV allow for you to take a break. If you’ve been sitting at your laptop staring at a blank screen for two hours, why not put something interesting on it? Two; Movies and TV-like music-can help inspire you to approach your work differently. If you hadn’t noticed by now, I am an avid fiction writer and oftentimes, I approach certain scenes in my stories all wrong. Perhaps my pacing is wrong or the scene introduces plot holes, so I step away from my work and turn on a movie to take a break but also to see if there is anything I might be able to borrow from a scene that can help me fix my own stories. It truly doesn’t matter what genre you write, all movies have something in them that can inspire you. Now you may look at the “borrowing” as bad, but I am here to tell you that everyone borrows from someone else. How many vampire shows do you see on CW? Factions and Districts? Star Trek and Star Wars? You get the point. And again, it’s not always fictional stories that this happens in. Have you ever been sitting in class watching someone present something and it piques your interest so much that you want to use what you’ve seen? We all have role models that inspire us, so borrowing is not an issue however there is a very stark contrast between borrowing or being inspired by something and straight up stealing. Regardless, watching something play out in real-ish time, can most definitely help you jog your creativity.
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Clean Up
Killing two birds with one stone is one of my favorite hobbies. For some, cleaning is thought to be therapeutic especially when no one is telling you to do it. This may seem way off from the previous two methods, but getting up and moving around can help you approach things differently when you return back to your work. Cleaning is an amazing way to completely take your mind off of your work and helps you redirect your mind and energy to something else. When you finally do go back and sit down, you will approach your work with new eyes (which might burn because of all the chemicals you used, but new eyes nonetheless).
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Take a Nap
Did you know that taking a 20 minute nap is thought to be able to boost your creativity? I definitely take much longer naps than that, and if I quantify my creativity then my naps boost my creativity exponentially. Aside from the scientific studies that you can read up on after this article, a nap gives your brain some much needed rest and if you get lucky (and take a two hour nap like I do), you may have a dream. If movies and tv help boost your creativity, a dream can surely do the same. Now I know some of us tend to have dreams that play out similarly to the victory screens at a bowling alley, but you’d be surprised to know that even those dreams can give you some inspiration. And to make matters even better: you took a nap. Just like cleaning, stepping away from the computer is a must and taking a nap assures you can rest your mind and come back to your work with new eyes and maybe even a dream to help inspire you.
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Take a Walk
I have found this to be perhaps one of the most helpful methods to rebuild my desire to write, especially when it comes to long term bouts of writer’s block. Why? The outdoors has endless means of inspiration within it. Perhaps you don’t know what kind of article to write and you’ve decided to take a walk. To your great delight there’s a street performer outside of some café. There’s your story. For creative writer’s the outside world is the inspiration you need to build your imaginary world. Every piece of pollen in the air, every noise a bug makes, every car that drives past you can be incorporated in a story. You may not know what to write, but I will give you this tip: when you take your walk, sit down at some point and describe what you see and what you hear. Describe the people you see and how it smells. What do the clouds in the sky look like? What does your walk sound like? Exercises like this will make your writings much more saturated. Your world will be much more realistic and it will be much easier to transport your readers to your world. Perhaps these exercises will even spark an entire story like they have for me. Whatever it does, it will help you in some way.
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Read
For our final tip, I present to you perhaps one of the most important solutions to help you with writer’s block. Like TV and Movies, reading allows for you to step away from your work (sometimes, but we’ll talk about this in a second), and consume someone else’s. This can help you, again, find different ways to approach your own work. If you read an article and find yourself drooling over a lead, find a way to incorporate some of it’s goodness into your own work. If you read something in a script that you enjoy, borrow! I can’t stress this enough: It’s okay to borrow if you like something. Reading someone else’s writing will surely help you build your skills and even inspire you to write something else. I didn’t mention this in the Movie and Tv section, but when I was younger, or a budding writer, I often rewrote scenes that I did not like. I did this for movies, tv, and for books that I was reading. Of course these will never see the light of day, but this will help you build your skills and is a great way to find ways to borrow and not steal. I also failed to mention this in the movies and TV section, but just like on those walks outside, try to write what you see in TV and movies and translate them to written words. As writer’s, we all have other writers who inspire us and writers who we want to model ourselves after. Those authors have authors who inspired them too and certainly they have borrowed just like you will. Read a book and find things that you like and find a good way to incorporate them into your own writing.
Writer’s block is terrible, I know. I’ve had it more times than I can count. It can be discouraging and downright annoying, but if you use any of these methods to help you overcome it, you can surely come out of it a better writer and with a new outlook on whatever project you make be taking up at any particular time. So without further ado, good luck, and go write that story!