Writer’s block 101

If you have ever written any kind of essay in school, let alone a blog or article, then you know what I’m talking about. I believe it’s a step by step process so here goes:

Stage 1: Intent

    The feeling that comes over you, the overwhelming desire to etch your words into immortality in some way. So the will to write is definitely there. You pick up your pen and paper, or if you’ve embraced a more eco-friendly approach, you open a new Microsoft word document (lol). You look at the page and start writing or typing. If you’re lucky you already have a title. If you don’t well, that’s just too bad, you just have to wrack your brain a little harder. You write a few lines of what at first had seemed like a brilliant idea. And then you suddenly stop for one of two possible reasons:

a) You’ve realized that what your writing sounds like complete and utter nonsense

b) You’ve suddenly run out of ideas or rather the idea you had has come to an abrupt stop. Kind of reminds me of:

And so you move on to...

Stage 2: Unsuccessful salvaging

    By this point to save yourself from further embarrassment (Even though nobody has witnessed this whole unfortunate event) you either tear out the page and rip it to pieces, or you hit the backspace button furiously for a couple of seconds (Destroy all evidence). In fact, the more I think about it, it sounds more and more like the perfect murder. Only that in this case:

Victim – Creativity

Killer – You

Murder weapon – Badly structured sentences that are on the road to nowhere

Motive – Accidental

Solution – Destroy all evidence

Stage 3: Desperation

   But now even though you’ve destroyed the first of what could be very many drafts, you still have to write something. So you stare at the page and will the words to magically flow over the page hence creating some kind of literary masterpiece. Well if you’re reading this right now and you’re currently at this stage, I hate to break it to you but, this is not going to work.

Stage 4: Solution 

  So now that I’ve described everything in your current situation, you’re probably waiting for me to give you a solution. Well this may or may not work but I’d tell you to just scribble down whatever feels right and hope that one of those things you’ve scribbled turns into something more. Need an example? Well if you look up and down this very blog post you might realize that I’ve just written an entire post about having writer’s block while I was having it myself. Or maybe you just need a change of scenery or activity to give you inspiration. I’m really not sure. What I do know however is that the whole thing eventually resolves itself.

Ciao...