Jeff Bollow Every writer has faced the dreaded writer’s block.
It comes with the accompanied feeling that you are not good enough. That the idea or story is not good enough. Amateurish. Undeveloped – and thus you should quit working on it. Or quit the writing profession as a whole!
But not only is writer’s block curable, it can also help you improve your craft!
Cure Writer’s Block – Instantly!
In this blog post you’re going to learn how to cure writer’s block once and for all! Forever.
In fact, any time you experience writer’s block again in the future, simply come back here and cure it all over again – because this little trick will help you fix the problem regardless of what you’re trying to write.
Here’s how to start:
Give yourself permission to write garbage.
It’s both as simple and as tricky as the sentence above.
Allowing yourself to write garbage doesn’t mean that your writing is inherently garbage. It means that you are allowing yourself to produce what the most critical part of your brain keeps telling you is ‘garbage’.
This is the block. The critical part of your brain is the block. It’s not that you no longer have any ideas, because like we said ideas spark ideas all the time! The problem is that when you allow yourself to believe the critic inside of you, you block your own flow of creativity.
Here’s why.
What actually is writer’s block?
Let’s think about what this block actually is.
As its name implies – something is blocking your creative flow. Well, that something, that critic, is the need for perfection. Your critic cannot handle the idea that you are not producing perfection every step of the way. How annoying is that?
So, the natural answer to the problem is remove the need for perfection.
First, open a file in your word processor, or a notebook. Think about what you wish you could write about if you weren’t blocked. Set a timer for three minutes, give yourself permission to write garbage – and GO!
Write as much as you possibly can in three minutes!
Don’t think about words. Don’t think about grammar. Push aside any thoughts about whether or not it all makes sense, or what someone else would think of your three-minute sprint. Just. Write.
In fact, if you are so blocked that absolutely no words are coming out of you – deliberately write garbage!
Do it on purpose! Annoy that critic in your head that’s too stiff to let your creativity flow naturally.
Gradually, you will see that words will come back to you again. They will appear on the page. The pen will move, the keyboard will make that all-familiar typing sound, and you’ll be back to your old self.
The great thing about this excersie is that once you break through that initial block, there’s nothing that will be able to stop you moving forward.
Congratulations! You’re writing again!
But wait, shouldn’t I write quality from the start?
Why would you put this amount of pressure on yourself?
Does a painter expect a masterpiece on their first try? Don’t singers do warm-up exercises before they release their powerful voices into the world?
Writers deserve a good warm up too – without being judged for it.
Now, the critic voice in your head isn’t actually all that bad. You just have to learn how to work together as a team. You need that voice because it actually has your best interest at heart.
That voice inside your head that criticizes every word you put on a page is actually your last line of defense against looking foolish. It doesn’t want you to put out bad writing because it doesn’t want the world to judge you for it and make you feel bad. The problem is that it’s interrupting.
It’s jumping in before its turn. It wants to criticize something that doesn’t even fully exist yet!
The process of writing
Writing is a process, and getting your idea onto the page is only a tiny part of the whole process. In fact, the whole process has 4 stages.
- Give shape to your idea by turning it into a story or mapping out what you want to say.
- Get it on the page.
- Make sure those words express your idea effectively.
- Fine-tune it all for the reader experience.
Writer’s block happens when you try to do all four steps all at once!
How to finally silence your inner critic
Here’s how. You make a deal with it.
Tell your inner critic that it will have a chance to have its say – LATER. Before you show your writing to anyone else.
Once it knows you’re not being reckless it will go quiet and let your creativity flow. But, you must give it its chance to be critical fafterwards. Because if you send a sloppy first draft into the world that critic voice is not going to trust you again in the future. Instead, it’s going to work even harder to make sure that you experience writer’s block more often.
So, give yourself permission to write garbage and to even enjoy the fun of it! Enjoy the fact that you are writing free without any obligations for a while. Later, you will have plenty of opportunities to strengthen what you’ve written.
That’s how to cure writer’s block instantly every time.
Try it now and let your ideas flow.
And as always, enjoy the process.
