Demystifying Writer’s Block

If suffering from writer’s block was a sport, I’d likely win a medal. You probably would too. Heck, it would be a staple in every writer’s home, and in a dystopian world might be a badge of belonging. ‘So, you say you are a writer? Where’s your writer’s block badge?’

It sounds weird, I know, but I see you tilting your head in concurrence.

Writer’s block. That annoying phase where the blank screen is the worst thing you could look at. You’d find tons of articles on writer’s block but there’s only a few that address the issue in the manner that is helpful to most writers. Or at least, helpful to me and a few writers I know. If you are looking for a quick fix or a generic ‘Just write’, this is not the place to be.

This is for those who have not found solutions in the articles that talk about shifting things around and reading other people’s work. I’m not saying these are bad advice, but from someone who has suffered quite a number of writer’s blocks, I can tell you for free that those only work for mild blocks. Yes, you read that right. Blocks can be mild, moderate or severe and the solutions to these blocks vary from writer to writer.

Still, read those articles because they work. Some of the advice you’d find in them are:

• Read other people’s work
• Get a hobby
• Take a break
• Just write
• Change scenery
• Forget perfection
• Pretend you are talking to a friend (This has helped me once. I speak the story, rather than write it, although what most people mean by this is to write as if you were talking to a friend. I make it verbal storytelling rather than the written form. Sometimes I go crazy with my narration, and I get so excited I need to write it down.)

Writer’s block, though it affects nearly all writers, is a personal struggle. Because of this, a one-fix-all attitude is detrimental to a writer in its grip.

For better understanding, and for the sake of the uninitiated, let us start by defining writer’s block.

Here’s a few of my favourite definitions:

Writer’s block is a psychological inhibition preventing a writer from proceeding with a piece. –Merriam-Webster.

Writer’s block is the condition of being unable to think of what to write or how to proceed with writing. –Oxford dictionary.

Finally, my favourite of favourites. Writing expert Mike Rose defines writer’s block as

‘the inability to begin or continue writing for reasons other than a lack of basic skill or commitment’.

You might have noticed the reoccurrence of the word ‘proceed’, meaning ‘to continue’. I’ll return to this later.

We’re all familiar with writer’s block—some of us more than others, depending on our intimacy with impostor syndrome and stress. I wrote this blog post because I have experienced this so many times that I have now developed a feel for it and have found methods to reduce its impact on my mental health.

Going forward, let us forget all those definitions up there. Even my favourite. I’ve been speaking theory; now I’ll speak writer to writer.

When I say writer’s block, I am talking about that period when you just cannot write a word or your usual number of words without feeling like you are doing a herculean task. That period where you doubt your skills and have your blank page agree with you.

When the voice in your head that should build the worlds with you suddenly turns caustic and tells you that you cannot do it. When you have to write but you just cannot because you… just cannot. When you try to write something—anything, and your best efforts feel like a joke.

Because of this inability to write as you used to, you suddenly believe you really are not all it, you withdraw from people because you do not want anyone calling you out for being an impostor or because you know if you tell them of your plight they will make your worry seem silly, and remind you about the things you have written before.

Oh yes! Things you have written before! You hunt them down and read them, and you wonder how you did it; how you wrote those sentences, painted that imagery. You drop those pieces in anger and search for inspiration within other people’s work (a common advice for writer’s block), but then everyone seems to write so effortlessly, their ideas sharp and excellent on the paper, and seeing this just taunts you. See how easy this is? See what a writer really is?

So, you search for inspiration someplace else—movies, funny cat videos, anything to take your mind off your failure. These things have a way of taking up the whole day though, and you soon find that you have filled your day with inconsequential and unproductive things that make you feel happy in the moment until you remember you still cannot write any better than yesterday.

Writer’s block for most writers isn’t just a period of time when they cannot seem to write. It is a period of aggressively battling with self-doubt and hate and trying to measure our success in the number (or the quality) of our words. It is a period where writing becomes everything but enjoyable.

If you felt all that to your bones and you have tried the general advice with no luck, I’ll let you in on a secret: Writer’s block has little to do with your writing and so much to do with your mind.

Now, I’m not saying it’s all in your head the way people disregard the pain of others. I am saying it’s all in your head the way a writer would tell another writer exactly where they should look for a solution.

Writer’s block is psychological. Remember the definitions up there? The use of proceed is important to me because it tells you the writer started something. Even if you have writer’s block when you are trying to write your second book after a break of ten years, you wrote once. You wrote something once, so you can do it again. The problem is that with writer’s block, it doesn’t feel that way. It’s never just that easy.

I have managed to drastically reduce the number of times I succumb to writer’s block by stepping back and assessing my experiences. I was tired of it all. Tired of having more writer’s block than I had blocks of writing. So that you don’t have to waste as much time finding a solution, or better yet, so you know where to start your journey from, I would explain what caused my writing block.

Stress did.

People would tell you that the fear of failure, of being judged, or of an impending deadline is what causes it. And they would be right! But I have found that stress encapsulates all these.

I’m not talking about the common stress. Not the stress of reading for your midterms or the obvious stress of a day’s work. I’m talking about the stress you don’t know you have. That little irritation you think you have brushed away, or the knowledge that you must get round to doing something you do not want to do.

Maybe that is talking to a sibling about their behaviour or finally doing laundry. Those little things you ignore or get distracted from? They accumulate. They are like a persistent ticking in your head. Other sounds will come and steal your focus, but they are still there underneath the cacophony. Ticking, ticking, until your brain cannot take it anymore and stops everything going on in your head to demand ‘someone turn that damn thing off!’

I believe that is what happens with us when we hit a block. It is the accumulation of different thoughts and different stresses that just don’t let us think well.

For writers like you and I, the stress might be peculiar. I, for one, have hit more writer’s block when trying to write stories grounded in Anioma culture than any other story. Whenever I try to write, I remember that I want to write the Delta variant of the language, then I recall that there is scarce resource online for a solid book.

I push the thought to the back of my head but it remains alive, droning in the background, chipping at my resolve, popping up every time I want to write a sentence in Igbo, slowly mutating until it becomes a crutch and one day, I wake up and hate the characters in my story because they just aren’t Igbo enough. Because they are ‘lacking’, like their writer who cannot speak her own language well enough to write characters who can.

It is a messy affair.

The thing is, different things could cause your block. It could be something a friend said about your personality, someone’s blatant disregard of you, or a worry about a mole you found on your foot. Writing is a creative process, and it demands an uncluttered mind. Unfortunately, these things bleed into your psyche so subtly you do not notice them until you are running around trying to figure out why you cannot write anything more than the letter K.

Now that you understand that this is psychological, you should understand that to beat it, you need introspection. Learn to sit with yourself and ask yourself the hard questions.

Why do I feel so sad today? Why did I snap at my pet earlier? What is that one memory I have been trying to ignore? What is that tough conversation I am avoiding? Why do I feel like no one loves me?

It is therapeutic. Speak to yourself like you would a child, or a loved one whom you do not want to scare away. Be kind and be patient as you struggle to find the words to explain how you really feel. Sometimes you may find that what you suspected to be the problem isn’t even what is really bothering you.

Here’s a caveat: this only works if you have trained yourself to understand you. If you become perceptive to changes in your mood and give names to how you are feeling at every point in time, if you check in on yourself regularly.

If you haven’t gotten there, it is alright. That just means it might take you longer to come to the actual cause of your writer’s block. It just means you would try all the tricks in the book and progressively hate yourself (the feeling usually dissipates when the block is over) until you finally reach your boiling point.

This is the culmination. The point at which you finally burst out crying and pour your heart out to someone or something.

You might start off feeling like you are having a bad day, maybe hit your foot on a stool and call your sister to rant, then suddenly begin to talk about how you feel like you should take the job offer and move a thousand miles away, or confess that you were hurt by what she said about your life choices (even though this conversation may have happened a month ago).

Sometimes you may start by ranting about your writer’s block and end up talking about the actual stressors causing the block, because writer’s block isn’t the problem but a consequence.

In essence, writer’s block is caused by hidden stresses and the best way to get rid of a block is to dig out and address the stressor.

So, there you have it! My hot take on the writer’s block conundrum. I hope you found this helpful or at least agree that it is a refreshing view to this problem.

Also, if there ever is an award ceremony for writers who have struggled with writer’s block, give me an award or two. I have earned it.