Help With Writer’s Block

My wife knows how frustrating writer’s block can be for me, especially when I carve out time to write specific parts of my various books. Without fail I sit down to write and blank pages come out as if the printer is out of ink.

Here is a quote from Erica Eng on how to help with it.

“Whenever I get writer’s block, or editor’s block, I try to step back and recognize that fear is getting the best of me. I’m afraid that what I am about to create is going to be bad and the task at hand is too large for me to understand where to begin. So, I try to tackle my mental block by giving myself small successes. Tasks that are easy to do, like bullet-pointing fragments instead of writing out full sentences, or organizing my favorite takes on a time line instead of cutting a whole film right away. Eventually, I’ll find small bits of inspiration that will make me want to go further.”

Erica Eng, filmmaker Health.com, March 2022, p90

For me, I would have to say that fear is probably my primary cause of writer’s block. Sometimes it’s the fear of failure, that what I am writing is really bad and I don’t want anyone to read it. But, also the fear of success: in that what if my writing is really good and I have a bout of impostor syndrome and believe I don’t deserve the position I end up in or I’m not the person that people think I am.

But what I need to remember is that I have to take chances and risks in life. I need to be vulnerable because if I know people are reading what I am writing, it forces me to get better at it. This causes me to push through the writer’s block and get it out as best I can. To push through and take small steps in a forward direction. Sometimes when I do this, I come up with other ideas on other projects, blogs, or short stories. This is never wasted, and usually go into my morgue — a binder where my good ideas go to die. These are pieces of ideas that have starts and ends of things I can use in the future. Many of these pieces that rise from the dead are used in other works like the Talking With Stranger’s Series. This way I can use writer’s block in my favor somewhere down the line.

What I need to remember is that some of my ideas are never a waste. It’s just poor timing, so I save them in my morgue so that they will rise from the dead at a later time.