Writersblock

There’s No Such Thing as Writer’s Block

By Sue Fagalde Lick

A student called me the other day. Her article for my class was due in a few hours, but she said she had writer’s block. She didn’t know how to start. "Well, what’s it about?" I asked. She told me a few things. "Okay, if you only had one minute to tell your husband about this story on his way out the door, what would you say to grab his attention? What would be the one thing you’d have to tell him?"

She was silent for a minute, then said, "Thank you!" She hung up and wrote the article.

The following week, she called again. "My grandson used up all the ink in my printer," she said.

"Get some more ink," I said. Can’t, she said. "Put the story on a disk and print it on another computer." Can’t, she said. "E-mail it to me and I’ll print it." Can’t, she said.

"Just write the darned story," I said.

We can all find endless excuses for not writing. We have other obligations. The computer isn’t working. We don’t know how to start. But the biggest part of success is showing up. For writers, that means committing words to paper or computer screen in spite of everything.

Writer’s block boils down to this: you are trying to fight too many distractions, trying to do the wrong story or the right story at the wrong time, or you’re just afraid to jump in. If you find you can’t get started, take a minute to think about why.

Are there too many distractions? Have you chiseled out time to write or are you hoping it will miraculously appear despite having something scheduled for every hour of your day? Make writing a priority. Give it an official place on your schedule. If you can go into a room and close the door, it may help. Maybe you need to grab a notebook and go write somewhere else: in the back yard, at the library, at the beach, on top of a hill. Maybe you need to make that phone call you’re putting off, so you don’t have to worry about it anymore.

Perhaps you have the time and place to write, but the story is dragging like my dog does sometimes when I want to go one way and she wants to go another. Once I give in and let her lead, we move right along. Is this the story you’re supposed to be doing today or is another subject tugging at you? Maybe you should be writing about that instead.

It may be that this is the story you really want to write but you don’t have enough information yet or you’re not sure of the angle yet. Let it simmer on the back burner and write something else for a while.

Or, like the diver at the top of the diving board, you can’t quite make yourself jump in. Try these tips:

1) Write down the word "when". What comes next? Write that word down. What follows that? Continue adding one word after another until you’re rolling. You can do the same thing with "if" or any other leading word.

2) Experiment with several different beginnings. Try five or six. Let yourself be silly or lame or irreverent. Don’t try to be perfect. You can erase the duds later, but eventually something will click and you’ll find your way into the rest of the story.

3) Bite off little pieces. If you tell yourself you have to write the whole thing at once, it might be so overwhelming that it paralyzes you. If you promise yourself that you’re only going to write one page or one section, you can do that much. Once you’re warmed up, you’ll probably go on, but if you just can’t, at least you’ve gotten started.

4) Set the timer. Tell yourself you’re only going to write for a half hour and quit. That’s not long at all. If you absolutely cannot think of anything, fine, but don’t let yourself do anything else during that time. Chances are you’ll get bored and start typing. You can also challenge yourself to see how many words you can get down in 30 minutes, after which you’ll reward yourself with food, a walk, a TV show or whatever makes you happy. I’ll bet you don’t want to stop when the timer goes off.

Worst case, call me and I’ll tell you what to write, but ultimately that won’t work because you have to use your own words for your story. If I tell you what to say, it’s MY story.