Beating Writer's Block

It’s every writer’s worst nightmare. It creeps suddenly into your mind until it’s all you can think of, stopping the flow of any creative juice you have. Writer’s block - a writer’s number one enemy.

People can tell you a thousand ways to try to beat writer’s block, but in order to actually do so, you have to find what works for you. For some people, that’s going back to the drawing board, reworking the plot from the beginning. Some people flee from their writing, seeking refuge far away. If you do a search on the Internet, it’ll yield resumes like “go for a walk” or “create a routine.”

Think Small
What I like to do when I have writer’s block is start short. I find prompt generators for short stories or work on scenes from shelved WIPs (works-in-progress, for those who don't know) until something in my brain starts flowing again. I keep a main WIP folder on my computer so I can go right to my project or avoid it if I’m blocked on it. That keeps my project in the front of my mind so that I can zero right in on it.

Why do I do that? I hate writing when I'm blocked. I feel like I’m spinning my wheels and going in circles and getting absolutely nowhere. But I’ve found the worse thing I can do during this time is to stop writing. I get nothing done and I feel horrible about it. Bad writing can be edited, but you can't edit a blank page. If I’m worried that I’m only going to write something terrible, I work on a project I don’t care about as much, because at least I’ve written something.

Work on Something Similar
When I’ve spent a sufficient amount of time not working on whatever project, I’ll start working on something in a similar genre that’s not exactly the same. If I’m working on a historical mystery and am blocked, I’ll go work on historical romance or a paranormal mystery. If I’m working on YA Sci-Fi, I’ll go work on some other Sci-Fi or a contemporary YA. Sometimes it works, sometimes I have an across the board block, in which case I move on to something else.

Awaken our Vision

“Movies touch our hearts and awaken our vision, and change the way we see things. They take us to other places, they open doors and minds. Movies are the memories of our life time, we need to keep them alive.” - Martin Scorsese 

A tip I heard a while ago for beating writer's block was to go watch a movie or a TV show. Take an hour or so and put your writing down and just go enjoy watching something of a similar genre. There's a movie or TV show on almost anything you're going to write, so you can watch guilt free and think of it as research, the same as getting lost in the endless Google and Wikipedia searches. Chances are after watching something set in a similar setting as yours will help get your creative process working again.

"Sleep is the best meditation." - Dalai Lama
Another trick I’ve learned is thinking about the story that I’m blocked on before I go to sleep at night. The brain is an amazing tool. If you’re thinking about a problem before you go to sleep, sometimes it’ll start working itself out while you’re dreaming. You’ll wake up in the morning full of ideas. It’s a good idea to keep something near your bed that you can write some of these ideas down. You never know what will help clear your block.

If nothing is working...
You don’t want to force the creative process. If you’re having trouble with an idea, it might just being something as simple as it’s not the right idea and it’s time to move on to something else. This sounds like a horrible idea and no one wants to abandon a project that they’ve spent so much time working on, but sometimes this is the only thing you can do. Trying to force a project to work will often leave me discouraged, which is why I find it so important to be able to move on to another project.

Now, is this the right thing to do to beat writer’s block? Who knows? Does it work for me? Yes. Even if I don’t get unblocked on the original project, I’ve still gotten words on a page. Sometimes it’s something good, sometimes it’s something that can be revised and used on something else. As long as it keeps me writing, it’s a victory.

Sometimes, when you’re trying to beat writer’s block, all you really need is a little win.

What do you do to beat writer’s block? Do you have any tricks you use? Let us know by commenting below and make sure to subscribe so you can get the latest posts.

And if you're stuck on editing your work, check out my tricks to helping beat your editor's block.