By Oswald Adam
As a striving author and passionate creative writer, motivation and writer’s block are my biggest enemies. It seems I always need to be in the right place, time, weather, temperature- just for a chance to start writing consistently! And even then there is a fifty percent chance I will just end up not writing anyway.
Clearly I struggle with writer’s block, so how do I work through it? You’ve most likely have heard the typical advice; find a place outside your home to write, force yourself to write for thirty minutes a day, read your favorite books for motivation before writing, take time to story build before writing, writing, writing , writing– but if your anything like me, you know the desire to procrastinate is much stronger than this lack luster advice can handle.
In all honesty, I have not found the cure-all to writer’s block. I do still struggle from time to time with plopping myself down at a desk, pulling out my laptop, and typing words out onto an empty document. However, I have found a way to make motivation much more reachable and to quell writer’s block maybe seventy percent of the time. My best advice: Listen to people talk about writing! I have found that there is no better way to get the juices flowing than to hear about other people talking about the subject. Sitting down and listening to an English lecture about metaphors and stylistic choices used in our favorite literature pieces really can make you just want to jump up and run to the nearest note pad to write down all of your newest ideas. The relatability of listening to an English lecture or participating in a writing seminar makes the process seem much more feasible and less daunting.
Another method that helps me through writers block is immediately writing an idea down once it comes to me, and no I don’t mean in your notes app so you can collectively forget about it just like all of your other brilliant ideas that rot in there and take up needless storage on your phone. I’m talking about actually sitting down and writing out your ideas exactly in the format you are thinking of. You have an idea for a scene that will happen later on in one of your books but don’t want to write out of order? Too bad! Write it down. Don’t conform yourself to unspoken writing rules that further prevent your progress! You have a great poem idea but think you can just write it down later? No! Write it down right now! Even if it sucks! Even if your rough draft is so embarrassingly bad you hope no other eyes other than your own will ever witness it! Write it down, edit it later. Boom, you’ve just broken through your writer’s block.
So there you go, my tips on breaking through this writing block and lack of motivation. I know some people may not find these helpful, there’s no fool proof solution to such personal issues, however I can only hope this post helps some people in similar positions to me who struggle with possessing great ideas but no ambition to plot down said ideas on paper. I hope this post gives you some new ideas on how to overcome your procrastination and provides you with new methods you have never heard of before.