Sometimes inspiration does strike from out of the blue, and words pour down like rain. Ideas synthesize, fingers fly and Voila! You've created a masterpiece ... or at least a pretty good piece of work.
Such strikes of inspiration are not, for most of us, the norm. Writing takes commitment, and good writing takes practice.
Anyone who writes knows this scenario at one time or another: You have something to say, great ideas to express. Paralyzed, you write not a word. Until the writer's block is gone.
Still, what about writer's block?
Shift your perspective on what writer's block is. It's easy to panic, to believe it means you'll never write again, that you have no real talent or that you have nothing worthwhile to say. None of these is near the truth.
Even when your diligent with your practice, even when you show up day after day, you're not immune from block, from finding yourself without two words that make any sense. What then?
Writer's block is not the lack of skill or worthiness as a writer ... it is, instead, a signifier revealing one of two things:
Just realizing what was "blocking" me, what I needed to learn, freed me. When feeling "blocked" take a walk.
I went for a walk, and as my limbs fell into rhythm my mind fell into the story. Away from the computer, I could have a conversation with the characters; I could get inside them and hear what they wanted to say.
When you write you can not come but help up against and touch upon your own inner sore spots and the edges of your comfort zones. To write deeply you must delve inside of and push against these, stretching, questioning and seeing more and more clearly. Your blocks are gifts that push you to grow, to break through the hard places to reach fertile ground.
Shift your perspective on what writer's block is. Your blocks are gifts that push you to grow, to break through the hard places to reach fertile ground.
Whenever the story demanded she speak, I would feel the panic of putting on paper what was being shared as wisdom. Who was I to say such things? Just realizing what was "blocking" me, what I needed to learn, freed me.
When I was writing my novel, I found myself going in circles around a primary relationship in the story ... one between the main character and her mentor/teacher. I would talk about the teacher, but I couldn't dive into the center of her role in the novel, most specifically I couldn't find ANY words to put in her mouth. There came a point when I could no longer keep her mute.
Until the writer's block is gone.
When feeling "blocked" take a walk. Ask yourself what you might fear in the work you are doing ... what truth you are not yet ready to claim or tell. And keep writing.
· There is a truth you are not yet ready to tell
· There is something more that needs to be learned or experienced before the ideas can be fully crystallized
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