There is no such thing as writer’s block

Michael McShane
Staff Writer

Remember all those times you sat at your computer or laptop and tried to put a thought onto a word document and couldn’t come up with anything – the common name for that is writer’s block and it doesn’t exist.

What does exist is our frustrations with writing; yes, coming up with something concrete to put in an essay or assignment can be extremely irritating, but putting all our frustrations into a bubble and calling it “writer’s block” won’t fix the issue.

I myself fell victim to my inability to write and chalked it all down to writer’s block. That belief didn’t help and instead only hindered my ability to write. 

I would write and hate what I wrote and tried and tried and would get nowhere, throw up my hands in defeat and say writer’s block got the better of me. Only in reality, I got the better of me.

Instead of giving our frustrations a nickname we need to come to the realization that we let our frustration about writing cause us to be unable to write.

 I think we can all agree that it is impossible to write coherently when we are frustrated, and it shows in our writing.

It is here where I explain how we can get rid of this misconception about writer’s block and how we can get away from that phrase and be better writers – keep writing.

It’s a cliché thing to say and even I rolled my eyes writing it, but it’s a fundamental truth that the more you do something the better you get at it.  

I know people who say to themselves that they’ll never be good at writing or that they dread that essay for class. 

They give up before they even think about what they could write about. 

It’s all about self-confidence about writing. If you think you’re bad at writing, you have already put yourself at a disadvantage. 

When you write and you mentally believe the act of writing to be difficult you yourself are the writer’s block. 

You’re mentally blocking yourself from writing. 

Instead, try to take each sentence at a time, think in your head what you want to write as you write. When you write, your mind is your partner and your guide in a way. 

Let yourself just do the very act of writing and once you’re done, check back to see if there are any corrections that could be made. 

It’s drafting and re-working what you see, keeping what you like and changing up what you dislike.

Writing isn’t about creating a masterpiece in the first draft. You shouldn’t be bothered by what you write, but rather go along with it and see where it takes you. 

One of the most valuable lessons English classes have taught me is the value of the writing spurt. 

Just writing whatever comes to mind. Don’t focus on what your writing, but just feel yourself simply writing and getting yourself used to writing. 

Writer’s block is the mental blockage of believing we can succeed at writing.

 It isn’t that our ideas aren’t coming to mind, it is that we are overthinking our own creative thought and ideas.

Header photo courtesy of Flickr.