When you sit in front of your computer, suddenly you find yourself just can’t think of a single thing to write, you have dried up, your mind is a blank and you say to yourself ‘Well, I am outta here!’
Is that sound familiar to you? Have you ever experience that?
If you run websites, blogs and produce the content, you know what I am talking about; we’ve all experienced this phenomenon when we absolutely have to write something but nothing could come out, particularly when the deadline approach.
We are facing the writer’s block!
For golfers it’s the yips, for singers a sore throat and for writers it’s writer’s block – poet, journalist, playwright, author, blogger, student, essayist and anyone who writes for pleasure, profit or principal could face this challenge.
Speaking of writer’s block, it is the patron demon of the blank page. Sometime, you may think you know EXACTLY what you’re going to write, but as soon as that evil white screen appears before you, your mind suddenly goes completely blank, nothing there.
What I find is that the tighter the deadline, the worse the anguish of writer’s block gets. No matter that deadline you set up for yourself or others set up for you.
Having said that, can you figure out what might possibly be causing this horrible plunge into speechlessness?
The answer could be many – like anxiety, a life change, the end of a project, the beginning of a project, almost anything. A major reason why many writers struggle is because they won’t try something different. They use the same methods and routines over and over, then when writer’s block appears, these same writers are the ones who yell the loudest in their frustration. And, of course, they have also stopped writing.
Writer’s block can strike anyone at any time, so don’t afraid if you find yourself get into that block from time to time. You can fix this problem with one simple step – Be adventurous, think outside the square, try something different.
But be careful too when you face it, because based on the fear, it could raise you doubts about your own self-worth. Writer’s block is a quite sneaky thing, it doesn’t just come and let you know that, it makes you feel like an idiot who just had your frontal lobes removed through your sinuses. If you dared to put forth words into the greater world, they would surely come out as gibberish!
Let’s face it and be rational with this irrational demon, to overcome writer’s block is not that difficult, as long as if you really wanted to write you could overcome it. Plus, today’s technology changes overnight, the software and hardware, the gadgets and devices are capable of giving your writing lives a truckload of help.
By saying – just get over it can’t really help, it is not that easy. So try to sit down for few minutes and listen to yourself and get your mind calm down, do nothing else, you don’t have to write a single word.
Reconnect to Your Inner Writer and Overcome Writer’s Block
There are ways to trick this nasty demon. Pick one or pick several, give them a try, sooner or later, before you even have a chance for your heartbeat to accelerate, you will find yourself start to write.
Here are some tried and true methods that could help you to overcoming writer’s block:
1. Be Prepared
The only thing to fear is fear itself. So as soon as you start to write, feel free to improve it. If you can spend some time mulling over your project before you actually sit down to write, you may be able to circumvent the worst of the crippling panic.
2. Forget Perfectionism
No one ever writes a masterpiece in the first draft, thus don’t put any high expectations on your first writing. If you can tell yourself that you’re going to write absolute garbage, and then there will have more room for improvement.
3. Compose Instead of Editing
Never, never write your first draft with your monkey-mind sitting on your shoulder making snide editorial comments. Composing is a magical process, it surpasses the conscious mind by galaxies. It’s even incomprehensible to the conscious, editorial, monkey-mind. So prepare an ambush.
Sit down at your computer or your desk, take a deep breath, blow out all your thoughts, let everything loose, and let your finger hover over your keyboard or pick up your pen just write.
4. Forget the First Sentence.
If you can’t get that all-important one-liner at the beginning. Skip it! Go for the middle or even the end paragraph – start wherever you can, just read through your writing, the first line will pop up by itself automatically, from the depths of your composition.
5. Concentration and Focus
This is a hard one, it can really drag you down. Life throws us so many curve balls, how about treat your writing time as a little vacation from all those annoying worries, banish them, concentrate and focus on what you do – create a space, perhaps even a physical one, where nothing exists except the single present moment. If one of those irritating worries gets by you, just stomp on it!
6. Stop Procrastinating
Write an outline, keep your research notes within sight, use someone else’s writing to get going, babble incoherently on paper or on the computer if you have to.
Just do it, tack up anything that could help you to get your writing going: notes, outlines, pictures of your loved one. Write, read it, and then read it again. Soon, trust me, the fear will slowly fade away and that writer’s block demo will gone too. Otherwise, get help from Unlocking Writer’s Block to reconnect to your inner writer.
As soon as it does, grab your keyboard and start to write!
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