Wrestling with Writer’s Block

I came across this great article on writer’s block. The problem of writer’s block is nothing new for anyone who has tried to write a to-do list, let alone a book or other major project. We say we can’t write because we don’t have time, there are too many things to do. Or we can’t find the words right now, maybe we will find the time later, or the inspiration or the muse. After all, we only have twenty minutes before we have to pick up the kids from school or we have to cook dinner or our real job takes up too much of our lives.

So often when we get to the root of the problem we actually do have the time in our day, but it is our own fears that are holding us back. We are afraid of failure. Maybe someone told us in our childhood that we couldn’t write well enough, or that trying to write a book or a poem or a blog post was a waste of time. Maybe we are waiting until we are not quite so afraid to put our pen to paper or our fingers to our keyboard.

The way through the fear and insecurity is to first find the appropriate support and someone to help us with our motivation. At the end of the day (by the way – never use phrases like “at the end of the day” if you are writing a book), the only way writing happens is if we actually sit down and write. So the key is this – sit down and write something every day. Find prompts that inspire you or journal one paragraph every morning. Send a friend an email, take a crayon to a paper bag, it doesn’t matter what you write, it is the act of writing that begets more writing. It is the work of writing that gets us all through the block if we want to create our dreams.

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