This week’s article is exactly what you think it is: a piece on writer’s block because the little writer dude that sits in my head is on a poorly timed lunch break. He managed to blurt out a few paragraphs and then around 3:20 a.m, he grabbed his brown paper bag and left– fully aware of the fact that we still have an article to write, and an essay due by noon.
Everyone refers to writer’s block as just that– a block: a uniform plank of wood that exists in one definition. If it was that easy I’d just write out a list of ideas and choose the first one off the list. Writer’s block is approximately 10 times worse and about 100 times as frustrating. The fact that almost each experience with it is different makes it almost impossible to actually deal with, and the only salvation is that in my experience, each writer has a few types of writer’s block that they deal with on a regular basis.
“Can’t.Write.” writer’s block
The simplest, the most talked about. You have no idea what to write about. Your mind is literally blank and you feel like you’ve never had a single thought in your life, much less a thought worth writing about. This has happened to me maybe twice in my life and I’m unsure why this is the most talked about type of writer’s block when it’s obvious to everyone that an absence of ideas is often just a surface issue. Dig deeper and figure out why your brain is refusing to allow you to catch a thought to dwell on when just last night you had so many of them you couldn’t fall asleep for hours.
“Can’t sit still” writer’s block
You’ve spent two hours finding the perfect space to write. It’s naturally lit, you have a pad of paper next to your laptop that you have no intention of using, you’ve made yourself a smoothie. Two words in, you realize it’s all been for the aesthetic and you’re on Snapchat and in a half hour you’re going to realize that this is just not the day for you to write. Typical.
“Eight-year-old writes Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse” writer’s block
You’re super inspired for once. The novel in your head has been writing itself in there for three days and it’s a masterpiece. This is the work that’s going to win you the Pulitzer Prize and that girl who told third grade you that you weren’t going to amount to anything is going to be so damn sorry. The notebook is out and your favorite pen is scratching away on paper and you love writing, you love your own genius. You pull away and reread what you’ve written: “Charlie is happy about the stuff at his school, he came home to tell his dog who is fluffy and cute about his school stuff.” You’re ready to call that girl from the third grade and ask her to personally cut your hands off because you’ve written the literary equivalent of the doge meme.
Just step away. Surprise yourself in the evening. At 11 this morning you convinced yourself that you should never write again; by 9 p.m, you’re pretty sure Vonnegut himself would tell you your stuff is half-decent.
“Entire brick house in your mouth” writer’s block
It’s not just one block– it’s like twelve of them and they’re in your mouth where you thought just your foot was, but alas, your foot has brought friends. Your writing is slow and painful and mushy. Your sentences end way too quick yet the torture of each one cannot end quickly enough. Meter? A purpose? New phone, who dis.
Free-write like your disaster of a ninth grade English teacher taught you to. That’s right, every high school teacher who made you free-write for twenty minutes about absolutely nothing was onto something. It's surprising how educated, professional instructors actually tend to have safe and sound advice– I know –but sitting in a classroom and writing “this is stupid I don’t know what to write” over and over actually paid off. When your language is coming in thick streams of pointless crap, it pays to open a new Word document and just jot down a stream of consciousness sans periods or commas. Somewhere around the second page is where an outline might form. Once you’ve written the debris out of the tip of your pen, you can let the ink flow.
