‘What do you do when you get writer’s block?” someone asked me the other day. I was happy to answer. I get up from my desk and wander around with a self-pitying expression on my face, sometimes clutching at my scalp in an agonised fashion. I buy sour gummy chews and eat too many; I compulsively click “refresh” on Twitter; I start to hate myself, and express it by snapping at others.
On reflection, I see why this response didn’t satisfy my questioner: he wanted to know what I do to overcome writer’s block. I’ve no idea. I keep eating the chews and snapping, and eventually it’s bedtime, and in the morning the block has usually gone. Feel free to try this solution yourself.
Vast amounts have been written, ironically enough, about writer’s block, both by self-help authors and academics, but to little effect. (Every few years, some psychology journal gets the hilarious notion of an article on the topic that’s just several columns of blank space.) Meanwhile, a macho strain of advice holds that there’s “no such thing”. (“You wouldn’t hear an accountant complaining about accountant’s block!” these people crow, as if that settles things.)
But it’s not quite right to say there’s no such thing as writer’s block. The real problem, as the psychologist Paul Silvia notes in his excellent book How To Write A Lot, is that it’s a description masquerading as an explanation. It portrays a situation – the one in which you’re not writing – while pretending to say why: because of a “block”. But this adds nothing. It’s like saying the reason for America’s skyrocketing defence budget is that America keeps spending more on defence. Or that you’re sleep-deprived because you don’t get enough sleep.
There are, research suggests, many explanations for the behaviour of not writing, including fear of others’ judgments or excessive self-criticism. (Also: do you even want to write? Or are you subliminally trying to please someone else, such as a parent?) Whatever your reason, diagnosing yourself as having writer’s block, rather than just not currently writing, will make matters worse. “Naming something gives it object power,” Silvia has said. “People can overthink themselves into deep dark corners, and writer’s block is a good example.”
The most important step in overcoming writer’s block, then, may be cutting it down to size: grasping that it’s just a situation, not an underlying condition, and that it’s solved, by definition, the moment you write anything. You could keep a dream journal, as Graham Greene did, or do “morning pages”: three pages of whatever comes to mind first thing. Give up writing in binges, and focus on doing a tiny amount, very regularly, including stopping when time’s up. Oh, and stop expecting writing itself to be pleasurable. (I’m deeply suspicious of anyone who claims it’s fun.)
None of these are exactly grand strategies, but according the issue of writer’s block too much grandeur is precisely the problem. You don’t need to clear some mysterious blockage. You just need to write.
