The Antidote to Writer's Block

“Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author is either unable to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown.”

So melodramatic: The author is unable to produce new work. Practically an illness: a condition.

I also love the image Wikipedia chose to accompany the entry: 19th- and 20th-century impressionist painter Leonid Pasternak’s “The Passion of Creation.” High drama. Total despair. (Google the phrase writer’s block, and that image will come up a lot.)

You have to understand that Leonid was friends with Leo Tolstoy, perhaps the most melodramatic author to set foot on this earth. (That’s not a dig at Tolsoy’s writing—come on, War and Peace, Anna Karenina—but Tolstoy had a way of creating drama in his life. He was a serious philanderer, made his wife Sophia a slave to him and then left her at the age of 82, and started what was basically a cult that got him excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church.) (Yes, Leonid was also the father of Boris, author of Dr. Zhivago, and about a gazillion poems. No writer’s block there.)

Writer’s block can be applied to visual artists, but usually, it’s just us. Surgeons don’t get surgeon’s block. Electricians don’t get electrician’s block.

Writers like drama. That’s our bread and butter. And sometimes, our love of drama seeps into our lives in ways that aren’t productive.

(For those of you who are too hard on yourselves, don’t read this paragraph.) Writer’s block is convenient, isn’t it? We can’t work. It’s a condition. Through the ages, writers have been at its mercy, so why not me?

But writer’s block is a myth. I’m not saying it doesn’t feel real or isn’t an actual experience; it is. It’s torture. But it’s unnecessary and easily—if we want to resort to medical terminology—cured.

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The Basics

Writer’s block occurs for three reasons:

1. impatience,

2. self-judgment, and

3. self-doubt.

Impatience

Writing, as you probably know, is a process. There’s no way to beat that or worm your way around it or trick it or cheat it. You have to go through the entire process—all the messy.

Here’s how I break it down:

• Stage 1: Idea Building

• Stage 2: The Zero Draft

• Stage 3: Revision (for content)

• Stage 4: Editing (for style)

• Stage 5: Proofreading (your best friend)

Writer’s block occurs when you try to skip a step—like this:

You can’t go from the idea in your mind to the finished (brilliant) result without going through all the messy parts.

Self-Judgment