Writer’s Block

Is writer’s block a lie we believe or an excuse we make?

I was at a function last night and did the usual small talk with strangers. When people find out I’m a writer, I get the same question, ‘How do you deal with writer’s block?’ 

Let’s pause here…

Why is this my most common question? 

When did writer’s block become such a thing? You wanna know my response? I say, ‘I don’t really get it.’ And everyone is shocked. 

On this particular occasion I said to my new acquaintance, ‘Do you ever have a flat day at work?’ They nodded enthusiastically. ‘See for me, it’s about listening and responding. Listening to myself—to my mind, my body and my emotions. Am I in a good space to pump out a few thousand words or just a few hundred? 

Sure sometimes I get stuck, but I’m never blocked. Why? Because I know when it’s time to hit pause. I think it’s what you do in the pause that has the potential to become a block. So, for me, I go for a walk around the block or a big hike and more recently I’ve begun to frequent the hot tub at my local gym. Both give me space away from my desk and the familiar distractions and it’s there that I find I focus my thoughts.

If I’m trying to pump through lots of words in one week, this is my trick and I learnt it from Ernest Hemingway “I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.”

So practically what that looks like for me, is I write the chapter I’m working on then whilst the juices are flowing I write an outline for the next chapter. And this sets me up for the following day. 

One other thing I do is hit the pause button. I did a six month novel work on a young adults series I’m working on and once the course had finished—I was wrung dry. I didn’t want to go back to my book and asked my two mentors if I should just push through. I received an emphatic “NO!” from both of them. Thank goodness they agreed! But they both said the same thing, that I must absolutely take a break and allow the space for the story to ruminate. But they both strongly encouraged me to keep writing and working on other projects. I tell you that to say, you might be block on one thing, but free-flowing on another. So...test your flow.