Writer’s Block

The bane of every writer’s existence.  i don’t even like to say the words out loud.  It makes it seem a lot more real.  But the truth is, it is very real and it hits everyone who writes.

I get stuck sometimes.  When what’s in my head doesn’t come out right on the page.  Or worse, when what I’m working on has no words at all.  When I stare at the page, reading where I left off, and I’ve got nothing to add to it.  I hate that feeling the most.  Because there are thousands of thoughts in my head and why can’t I seem to make anything at all make sense?  It’s like a pain in my stomach.  It’s like it’s physically painful when I can’t write; not because I don’t have the time or I’m busy with something else, but because there are no words.

The best advice I’ve ever gotten is just to write anyway.  It doesn’t matter what.  Just write.  It could be complete and totally crap, but write anyway.  Get something on the page.  And usually, when I do that, it’s like my writer’s block is forcibly broken.  I might not actually keep a single word that I put down, but better things flow through the hole I made in the block and then, when the force gets stronger, it breaks that block apart and I can write again.  Sometimes it happens all at once, like a dam breaking.  And sometimes it’s a slow process, a little at at time, until the block is completely worn away.

I was suffering from a the block for the last week.  And everything I wrote was awful and I couldn’t keep anything I wrote.  And it was making my stomach hurt.  But I kept writing anyway.  And then, it all broke free and the words were ones I actually wanted to keep.  That progressed the story along and actually made sense.

So that’s the advice I pass on to you.  Write anyway.  It doesn’t matter if it’s the worst thing in the history of all the world.  Get words on the page.  And when you’re done, more and better words will come.