Nearly everyone working with words gets it at some point: the dreaded writer’s block. It can happen with your novel, your blog or if you work in content writing and it’s always incredibly frustrating. You just want to get on with it, but your brain won’t let you and is determined to keep you endlessly staring at the screen or page. This blog looks at some of the tricks you can use to try and relieve writer’s block and get your work back on track!
Distract Yourself
Often with writer’s block, the best thing to do is ignore it and pretend you haven’t noticed it sneaking glances over your shoulder! Distracting your mind for a little bit can have a sort of “resetting” effect, allowing you to come back to your work refreshed and with new ideas at the ready. It can help to do something creative, such as cooking, sewing or a craft. You could sketch a quick doodle or go for a walk. Don’t fall into the trap of doing this too often, though. It’s important you still have time left to get on with what you’re doing, especially if you have a deadline looming!
Do Writing Exercises
You can find writing exercises all over the internet and in magazines or set your own. For example, you might write 200 words involving three items that are currently on your desk or create a silly pitch for a fictional product, such as elbow grease. These will help you get back into the swing of writing without too much pressure. They should also be fun little exercises to warm you up, even if you don’t have writer’s block.
Expand Your World
If the next stage of your story isn’t coming easily, consider writing additional information about your universe, whether fictional or not. You could write backstory for one of the characters, explaining their motives and personality or just writing about other events in their life.
Alternatively, you could flesh out the universe itself. Maybe one of your characters works in an old building with an interesting history? Or you always wanted to write more about that event just before the time of your novel, but it never really fitted? Now’s your chance! You could even put these little extra snippets up as a blog post later if you have one, giving fans something else to sink their teeth into while they wait.
Get Inspiration
Another great way to distract yourself is to read, especially works similar to what you are doing or by authors you admire. This may mean settling in for a quick chapter of a novel, reading other blogs you like or maybe just a writing magazine; anything that you enjoy and inspires you. You can encourage your imagination and creativity to come back to the fore, which is a great natural way to get rid of writer’s block. This should help you to return to your own work with fresh eyes and able to continue with your writing.
Plan It Out
If you can’t concentrate, you could always use the time for planning out your story or article in more detail. For example, you could do a rough plan of a specific part of the plot or section, or brainstorm ideas for what else could happen in your story. Look at what you’ve already written and consider what options you have for side plots. This may well give you the inspiration you need to start writing again.
Review What You Have
Following on from the last tip, look again at what you already have, this time checking it over for mistakes. If it is a novel, you could consider the plot so far to make sure that you have no inconsistencies, ensure that you’ve always used the right character names in the right places and that the plot will be clear to a new reader. For all types of writing, you can start looking over your work for grammatical and spelling mistakes. I have a blog with some Self-Editing Techniques that you could try. The aim of this is partly to start preparing your work for a full edit, obviously, but also to refresh your work in your own head so you can start writing again.
Just Write Anyway
Sometimes writer’s block occurs when we can’t think of the exact right way to put something or aren’t sure that the result will be good enough. Don’t think about this for now – just write something for your work. Simply starting it will often be enough to relieve writer’s block and let you carry on normally. Remember you can always edit what you’re writing at a later date – you probably would have done anyway! Don’t worry too much about everything being perfect. Sometimes it’s fine to be a little rough in your writing, just call it a first draft.
This is the only certain solution to writer’s block, to ignore it and keep writing anyway. If you always wait for the perfect moment or inspiration to strike you may never write, which is certainly not doable with a deadline looming! Just try to ignore the feelings of doubt you may have and remember it doesn’t need to be final yet. You may well like what you end up with more than you expect to.
Wrapping Up
Writer’s block is every author’s worst nightmare! But you can get over it, after a quick break, finding a new creative outlet and reviewing your work. Don’t give up – keep at it. Everyone has bad and good times at their work and you will be able to “unblock” if you keep trying. Good luck!
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