I have a confession: I’ve been stuck in a writing slump for the past many months… But I don’t believe writer’s block is a thing. I’ll try to lay out some things to get you going if you feel stuck in your writing. As always, your mileage may vary.
- Think about your physical environment
People perceive 80% of information about the world through sight (source). Think about the room where you write: is it your living room? Your bedroom? Wherever you can find the time? If you feel stuck, it might help to change it up. Go to a café, sit on the other side of the table, even sit on the floor. The change in perspective might shake up your mental processes and give way to those words that have been itching to get out.
What software you use might also be influencing you – or even what font you’re using! There is plenty of writing software that you can try out, even as a trial version or for a single writing session. The most obvious contenders are Microsoft Word and Scrivener. Try out something else: OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Microsoft OneNote, yWriter, Write it now, Google Docs, Evernote… The list goes on for as long as you have the patience to keep googling. Try a different font, go fullscreen, change the colours of the text or the background. Have a play around and see if it helps; you never know!
Another article I came across while reading around this topic is this. It’s difficult to measure consciousness and the amount of detail we observe objectively. If you’re focused on one particular detail, it’s more difficult to note others. Think about the term ‘tunnel vision’. Yes, you sit at your laptop or notebook and stare at it for hours, but in reality you are observing so much more beyond the focal point of your writing. This leads me on to my next point. - Don’t obsess
You were probably made to read certain books at school. Chances are that you didn’t like being forced to read. At university, you likely thought it was much more fun to go do anything but your assignments. If you’re writing as a hobby, then you don’t need to put so much pressure on yourself to produce content… she says, while frantically trying to write enough blogposts to publish twice a week. Point I’m trying to make is that if you’re trying to force the writing, it will stubbornly refuse to happen. Depending on how your mind works, one or several of these can help:
Take a short break: grab a cup of tea/coffee, go for a walk, go to the gym, make dinner, do that pile of ironing that has been staring at you for weeks… I’m sure you have a to-do list three feet long. Cross off a thing.
Take a longer break: hey, look, no one likes hearing it, but maybe this particular project isn’t going that well. I’ve read about writers who have had to delete pages and pages of material once they realised it wouldn’t work. If you’re neck deep in worrying that you’re not hitting your NaNoWriMo target, you won’t notice that you’ve written yourself into a dead end. Write something else, like a short story or a blogpost, or a really inspiring Instagram caption. Chill.
Read a book: either grab something in the same genre that will make you think ‘oh gosh I really want to write this kind of story’, or read the polar opposite to take your mind off things. Sometimes your best thinking happens when you’re not thinking about it.
I’ll be talking about various extracurricular reading in a future post, so keep an eye out for that. And I’m planning a post about consistency and habits, so that’s another one to look forward to! - Word vomit!
Now that I have your attention, I will repeat: word vomit. Write utter crap for a bit. Write a stream of consciousness. Write your worst dad jokes. Get drunk and write. Do whatever you need to get rid of that clump of words that’s holding you back. Depending on your levels of perfectionism, it might feel awful to do this, but you’ll feel better after. Trust me, I’m a stranger on the internet giving you advice on how to live your life!
Another thing you can do to flex your writing muscles is to look at prompts. There are many, many ways and sites to generate prompts. You can grab a book and take the first sentence on a random page to start. You can grab a dictionary or use your word of the day as inspiration. You can go on this website that has a page guaranteed to cure writer’s block. Have a google and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of websites that can generate prompts or random plots for your flavour of fiction or non-fiction.
Not every word that leaves your keyboard is meant for the world to see. You are allowed to write crap. Now read that sentence again, out loud. Apply to writing (and maybe life, if you’re anything like me). If you keep a diary or journal, that definitely isn’t meant for an audience – and sometimes, neither is your “proper writing”. The most difficult part of writing a book is getting to the end of it. Even if it’s a horrendous first draft, that’s better than an unfinished masterpiece.
Now go forth and write, my readers. Godspeed.