Everyone who’s ever picked up a pencil, pecked at a keyboard, or attempted to string together a coherent thought knows the unyielding agony associated with writer’s block—traumatic memories of blank pages staring back at you, a white void demanding to be fed new words so as it can grow to be big and strong. But instead, you sit there speechless, not a word to provide.
Stop! Don’t you dare let a momentary lack of new ideas stop you from making some dynamite creation that’ll blow all of your friends away! For a limited time only, here are some ways that I’ve fought writer’s block throughout the years that you could use too.
Tip #1: Consult the Archives
Every writer worth their pencil lead has a list of old ideas on the Notes app, or a Google Doc, or an old notebook lying around. Maybe it’s filled with ideas you never got around to. Maybe some of them didn’t quite pan out. Stuff that seemed like a good idea at the time, but now resemble the incoherent ramblings of a madman. For instance, I have a document solely for script ideas. Some of the entries have some real potential, but others just say, “A cowboy becomes a cowman,” or “Mailman story.”
But what if what first appears to be black hole of wasted potential turns out, with new context, to be your greatest work yet? Who knows what I might have meant originally by that whole cowboy idea? But now, I think: a story with a Western setting that examines the patriarchy in early America as our lone protagonist learns how to act as an archetype of positive masculinity. All it took was thinking about it a second time.
Tip #2: Write Anything
What if you look at a blank page and your mind comes up just as blank? You could try writing about that feeling. Describe the blank page. Or maybe, describe your breakfast. Or reveal your regrets about not having breakfast.
Let’s face it, coming up with a truly original idea is nigh impossible. However, all it takes to get the ball rolling is getting something on the page. So what better way to be original than talking about exactly what has happened to you? Maybe it won’t turn out to be anything special itself, but I’ve found that once the writing part of my brain is activated, I’m making art in no time.
Tip #3: Write Something Stupid and Throw It Away
The reality of being a writer is that the majority of your work is not going to be published. So if 90% of what I write ends up being practice for the published stuff, I may as well embrace it. Writing can just be for fun sometimes. Instead of a complex commentary on the patriarchy, I may instead want to write a cheesy western with a bunch of cowboy puns in it. Or an obituary for Dubstep. Or a joke so obscure that even I won’t get it in a month. Chances are, none of these things are gonna be usable material, and I am content with that. It probably won’t be a masterpiece, but I’ll never know until I get something on the page. Sometimes I just need that little reminder that writing is actually fun. With that mindset, the blank page will never scare you again.
