Getting Through Writer’s Block

A fellow writer asked me this today:

“Tell me….how do you break your writers block?? I feel so blocked… and it’s been so long since I did some creative writing. When I try to write, it feels stale, and unoriginal.”

Everyone has their own way of working through their writer’s block. The problem, I think, is finding out what your way is. Some people don’t really believe in writer’s block and I guess I probably fall into that category. I view writer’s block more as a mode of procrastination, a way of avoiding the story because it’s become hard, or avoiding the process because it isn’t easy. I also believe that sometimes, writers just need a break from writing.

I’m participating in NanoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org) right now and it’s hard to keep writing every day. I haven’t written a fiction piece in a while so it’s been especially hard mining for creativity. I keep trying to tell my self it doesn’t have to be perfect at this point because it’s only a rough draft. Perfect (ha!) comes later (sometimes not even then). I am going to keep my goal this month whether I die of boredom or not. I’m going to stick to my daily goals whether it’s sloppy, unrealistic or down right ridiculous. My point being, nothing will ever get written if I keep waiting for something exciting to come along. I have to make the exciting happen.

I honestly feel that writing is work and it takes practice like anything else we do. Sometimes it’s just going through the motions by doing a writing prompt or ranting or whatever until something better comes along. It is important to keep writing through the “stale” and “unoriginal” stuff and then go back and find that one word or sentence that makes sense and go from there. The biggest part of the writing process is not giving up.

Now go write something!