Hey, I've got a trick for you that destroys writer's block. I'm not exaggerating when I say this works 100% of the time for me.
Couple things first. One thing about writer's block people don't understand: it's not real. I mean, it has a reality, like money or ideas, but you deal with illusions different from how you deal with real things. It's important to understand that there's a distinction between it and real world problems. We have this unfortunate idea that something is "all in your head," and the problem is that that makes it sound like something is wrong with you or "you're just imagining it," but the truth is the problem can have a powerful effect on you despite the fact that it is, in fact, all in your head, that you're just imagining it. Ideas have a power over us and we have to fight them, but we have to do it differently from the techniques we use to fight real things, like Lewey body disease or hunger.
Okay, I'm going to give you a metaphor. Let's say you have a lawn mower that's very hard to start. Maybe you have water in the fuel. And you're just sick of pulling on the pull cord. One thing you can do is take the cover off and modify the starter coil very slightly with a bolthead. That way you can take a cordless drill, find the right bit, and spin the motor with the drill instead of having to pull it with the cord. That's a lot easier. No matter what the problem is with the mower, if it's too cold or it's got water in it that needs to be blown through or whatever, everything is going to be a lot easier if you just use an electric starter and you have all the battery you need, because you can just keep cranking and cranking it until it start. Once it starts, it'll warm up and the bad fuel will work its way through and you're going to be fine, but it's really hard to get to that point by yanking the pull string. That's why we cheat by using an electric drill instead. (This is a real thing that people actually do. You can look it up on YouTube If you want, but I'm just using it as a metaphor here.)
Anyway, here's the actual physical activity that you indulge in to break through writer's block like The Incredible Hulk:
First, buy some cheap tools. I would go to the dollar store. Whatever you're doing, if you're painting or sculpting or whatever, buy some cheap tools. Since you're writing I would just get some of those pens that are 10 for a dollar, a $1 notebook, and that's all you need. The point is this stuff is essentially disposable. I write using documents in my phone, so what I do is just open a new document that is essentially disposable and I won't mind if I delete it. Maybe you're right on a laptop. Start a new document. Call it brainstorm document one or something. Don't go to a lot of trouble.
Sit down somewhere where you're not being disturbed. This doesn't work for me in public places because I get distracted, but if you write in coffee shops all the time that might work for you. It's up to you. Just do whatever you normally do. I tried rain noise for a while for writing but it doesn't do anything for me so I don't use it anymore. Put yourself in your normal conditions for writing because you're going to write.
Now. I don't know if you've ever tried mindfulness meditation, but one thing you learn very quickly is that it's almost impossible to stop yourself from thinking. You're constantly being distracted by things all the time. That's kind of what mindfulness meditation is: you think about one thing, like your breath, you concentrate on that, you get distracted and your mind wanders, you go back to thinking about your breath. You'll think oh, my mind wanders, I'm bad at this, but that's just another thought. It's okay. Go back to thinking about your breath.
What we're going to do is kind of like that, but we want the thoughts; we're going to harness those random thoughts. At this point you have to let go of the idea that you're trying to do good writing. The task is not to turn out quality prose. You're about to write some garbage, and in the end you'll look at it and think wow, this is garbage, but (and I can't stress this enough) THAT'S PART OF THE ASSIGNMENT. If you discover that what you've written is crap, congratulations, you did the thing you set out to do. You should feel good. You should feel proud of yourself.
So start writing. You're not trying to write a finished product, you're trying to write the thought that you're currently having. And yes, you are having a thought. Could be "well this is stupid and won't work". That's perfectly fine. Articulated poorly? Bad spelling? Bad penmanship? Doesn't matter. Just get it down. Get it out of your head on to the page. That will lead to another thought. This is very abstract and stream of consciousness, kind of like "this is stupid. Oh well ... at least I'm writing something. Yeah but it's crap that nobody will want to read. But at least I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing." Nobody wants to read that. But THAT'S OKAY. You're not writing in the sense of your usual writing, this is an exercise intended to defeat writer's block.
Literally just write down whatever comes into your head all the time. Do your best to write as fast as you can and keep up with your own thoughts. If you want to go back and change something, go ahead, but if you get an idea about making that change, stick it at the end and keep writing. ("Shouldn't have put in that bit about [thing]; that was completely extraneous.") It's not about creating a final product, it's about the process. When you lift weights, you don't need those weights to be higher up in the air, you just need to lift them over and over again, and that's what we're doing here. When you run, you aren't going somewhere, you're trying to make yourself more physically fit. You're trying to be a better runner. That's what we're doing, but for writing.
Anyway, just keep doing this. Do it for like an hour without stopping. I know that seems crazy, but go ahead. Write crap. Try to think about whatever you're trying to write about, but it's not essential and can be counterproductive. If you're stuck on what this one character would really do, maybe think about it and write about how you're stuck on what they would do. Then write about the character, whatever. Whatever your normal thought process is. You're literally writing down your thoughts here, not the final end stage product of what you're writing will look like. This is super important! It's a massive distinction.
At 1 hour, or some predetermined period of time, or whenever you just feel like stopping after you've gone for "a really long time," stop and take a break. Get a cup of tea or do a shot or whatever it is that you do. Fix yourself a glass of organic free-range water, whatever "a break" is for you.
Then sit back down with your cup of coffee or whatever it is and just read what you wrote. "Wow, this is garbage." Congratulations! You have fulfilled the assignment and written exactly what you were supposed to write! Good job.
Not just anybody can write, but you know what anybody can do? Anybody can criticize. Anybody can edit.
So comb through those turds looking for diamonds. Review everything you wrote and see if there are any sentences that grab your eye, any basic ideas about future work, any decision that you've made about something that you want to take on board. Go ahead and extract everything you can; don't worry if there's not much there. Edit, fix, move sentences around, correct grammar and punctuation if you want, like if it's worth it for whatever piece of prose you're looking at, copy stuff out of this brainstorming document and put it in a real document if that's what you want to do. Up to you.
Quick note: if you suddenly stop being blocked, and you decide to switch over to one of your real documents and keep writing there, that's perfectly fine. That's the whole point we're after here, after all.
Anyway, if you do that first hour or period of time or whatever and it worked, great; if it didn't work, just keep doing it. This is the power drill that's spinning the motor trying to get it started.
I have a theory as to how this works: some human beings, namely writers, literally just have exported some of their thought process onto the page. You think by writing, to some degree. That way, by writing, you will help your own thoughts move forward.
Anyway, this always works 100% of the time for me, although I haven't tried it with sketching or painting or whatever, only writing, because that's what I do. Even if you don't write anything for publication ever in your entire life, this is an incredibly rewarding process which I would recommend to anybody who is interested in being creative.
Good luck, and I hope it works out and you can get out of your writer's block this way. I can't guarantee this will work in 1 hour or even today, but it always works for me eventually. Just keep spinning that motor and it will start eventually.
thank you so much for this note and taking your time writing this. this actually motivated me to write almost a chapter today when I haven't written for over a year (my characters are weeping in thanks). if ever in the future I'm in desperate need of motivation I'm going to come back to this. happy writing to you, as well ₊˚✩彡
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