I struggled with writer’s block for years.
Ever since I was at school.
It was always that first hurdle—the blank page. I could stare at it for hours without being able to think of a single thing to write.
Or so I thought…
It wasn’t until my late twenties that I realised that I’d been fooling myself all this time.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t think of anything to write.
It was that I didn’t think the thoughts coming to mind were worth writing down.
Want to overcome writer’s block? Write down EVERYTHING that comes into your head.
The first few thoughts will be so far removed from what you’re trying to write that you’ll think there’s absolutely no point writing them down.
It might even take some practice to notice them, because you’ve got so good at rejecting them before you’ve really even become conscious they were there.
But if you listen very carefully, and watch very closely, you’ll start to notice a fragment of the irrelevant thought before you discard it.
It might look like “I need to take the bins out later” or “My stomach just rumbled”. Cool. Write it down.
It might look like “I’m so irritated, why can’t I think of anything to write!” or “This page will be blank forever!” That’s no problem at all. Write it down.
Why?
Because if your mind is giving you those thoughts instead of thoughts about your writing topic, then those thoughts are more important to your mind right now. Ignoring that won’t make it go away.
Sometimes the thoughts will be relevant to the topic you want to write about but you’ve deemed them not worthy of making it down onto the paper. You’re editing in realtime, before the words hit the page. Editing should come later. Write the bad ideas down.
You can’t make something perfect if you don’t give something imperfect space to grow.
You’re training your mind that it’s OK to share what it’s thinking.
If someone routinely shut down every idea, anecdote, conversation you brought to the table, would you keep chatting with them for long? You’d give up. That’s exactly what’s happening when you reject every thought your mind offers you.
Accept the thoughts instead, just keep writing with an open mind, and before long—when your mind realises it’s got all its critical thoughts off its chest, it’ll start working with you. Giving you ideas closer related to your writing topic. Some of them will be removed later—that’s fine. There’ll be some gems in there too.
Another draft of this essay:
When we get writer’s block we’re saying we don’t know what to write.
That nothing at all is coming to mind.
But that’s not true.
What we really mean is that nothing relevant is coming to mind.
Maybe you’re trying to write about high-converting copywriting and the predominant thought in your mind is what you need to buy tonight to make dinner.
But by deciding that what the mind is telling you isn’t relevant enough to be written down, you’re doing it (and you) a huge disservice.
We’ve deemed the thoughts entering our mind as not relevant or not good enough or not worthy of being written down.
Write that “irrelevant” thought down.
Then if your next thought is about how stupid it is to write about dinner in your marketing article, write that thought down too.
Otherwise you’re doing your mind a disservice. You’re telling it that until it comes up with a “good enough” thought, you’re going to ignore it. That there’s a benchmark that it has to beat before it’s worthy of having its thoughts transferred to your blank paper. That it’s capable of generating ideas that are worse than having nothing written down at all.
But if it’s giving you a thought about dinner, that’s because for some reason or other it sees that as the most important thing to think about.
It’s naive to ignore or reject that, hoping that it’ll just go away and start providing thoughts more relevant to what you want to be writing about.
Honour what it’s telling you, without judgment.
Write it down.
Promise your mind that you’ll deal with that in time.
And then see what comes next.
“I don’t know what to write!” Write that down.
“This is so frustrating!” Write that down. Your mind (and maybe even your body, for a feeling like frustration) are trying to tell you they’re frustrated. If you get annoyed at that, trying to push it away instead of accepting that that’s your current state (by writing it down!) then you’re just perpetuating a cycle: more negative thoughts—more negative feelings—and taking yourself further and further from what you really want.
“It’s been ten minutes and my paper is still empty!” Write that down too.
Eventually, once you’ve honoured your mind by writing everything it’s thinking—by showing it that ANY idea it comes up with is good enough to make it down on your piece of paper, you might just find that you start getting thoughts a little more related to the topic at hand:
“I want to be writing about [topic] but I can’t think of anything good enough to write down.” Write that down.
“I know I want to be include something about [key word] and [other key word] but I don’t know how to tie any of it together”. Write that down.
Just be quiet enough, and honest enough, and respectful enough, to write every little fragment that comes to mind, no matter what.
That’s it.
Your mind just needs to know that you respect everything it generates, and it’ll quickly feel confident enough to share what you really want to write.
Sometimes it’s even like floodgates. Once you’ve honoured the “irrelevant” things that were really playing on it, and shown it that everything it gives you will be taken seriously and written down, it often starts throwing “relevant” ideas at you faster than you can write! Just write it all—keep honouring it. You can edit later.
Otherwise you’re training the mind that there’s a certain threshold it has to meet before it’s deemed worthy of having its ideas taken seriously—and not even the greatest minds in the world can generate their best ideas under that kind of pressure.
