• this one may not work for you, but sometimes I can overcome my reluctance to write by forbidding myself to do it. the minute I’m really not allowed to do any writing, I think of lots of things to say.
• when I was writing my book, I found my mind frequently procrastinated the writing I had planned, by producing work for a different part of the book. I would ostensibly be working on Chapter 2 and my mind would effortlessly generate flowing text that belonged in Chapter 4. I learned to leverage this by always having a text file open for every chapter. when my mind attempted to sabotage me, I’d just flip over to the proper chapter file and capture the writing I *was* producing.

• This is one of those things that can either cure you or kill you: often when I’ve got writers block, I’ll pick up a couple of my favorite books, find a quiet spot, and read (and re-read, and read again, and again read, as much as necessary) my favorite passages. Half of the time, I’m inspired; half of the time, I want to jump off a bridge because there’s no way I’ll ever reach those literary heights. It’s a gamble, but desperate times …
• Sometimes, the work I pick up is my own. I’ve got some things I’ve written which I think are works of incredible genius. (What everyone else thinks is probably another matter, but who cares?) Reading them for the nth time sometimes reminds me that I can indeed do this.
• Anne Lamott, in her excellent essay on writing, Bird by Bird explains that she keeps a one-inch picture frame on her desk to remind her that sometimes that’s all she has to fill. Instead of focusing on any major part of your project, write the scene, develop one character, write a few lines of choice dialogue, write the kicker at the end. Don’t give yourself any more responsibility than that for the day.

The question is, Merlin, are these hacks actually working for you? Check your in box. ;-)

Unbelievable. The one man who could make a lie of my brilliant advice stops by my web site. Just my luck.

You should be in Homeland Security, Brian. ;-)

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, right, Merlin? Seriously, Merlin. I’m watching you.

Seriously. ;-)

Hemingway once suggested simply writing one truee sentence. I have followed that credo every since and have never suffered from writers block. Give it a try!

Nice suggestions! I’m a writer myself, and one thing that I’ve learned is that writer’s block — like lovers’ spats — are never about what they’re about.

There’s no such thing as writer’s block: it’s always about putting your focus somewhere it shouldn’t be, which is always on product — outcome, whether it’ll be liked, what might happen if you say a certain thing, etc.

I’ve learned to consistently get myself out of a block by pulling my attention back to the work I’m doing at the moment, the process rather than the product.

If you’re stuck, it’s because there’s a question you’ve forgotten to ask or answer. Start asking yourself questions, and your wheels get traction.

I hope someone out there finds these thoughts helpful. They’ve got me through three novels and a few years of work as a copywriter.

Great ideas. I agree with Hamish—the best advice I’ve read on writer’s block is that it doesn’t exist, it’s just the name we give to failing to make a decision. So if I’m really stuck, I try to figure out what decision I’m not making, and make it.

The “unplug your router” advice is good. I’ve had a lot of success with a more extreme version of that that I picked up from slashdot.

Get a used sack-of-crap laptop and a light-weight linux distro. You can find really old celeron laptops for well under CDN$300 in my city. Put nothing on this laptop but a good text editor, or a nice and simple word pro like Ted or AbiWord. You do NOTHING on this laptop but write. (or programme, or whatever it is you do. Probably doesn’t work for graphic design …) Its like that old tip about doing nothing in bedroom but sleep and make love; when you sit down at that laptop, you know you mean business. That change of machine and/or venue can be enough to jolt you out of stuckness.

You can also do this with a live linux distro. When I had a g3, and no laptop, I found a workable equivalient in designating my terminal window for work only.

Hamish and PB: I think I mostly agree.

Another way to look at writer’s block is oddly GTD-like—sometimes you’re not ready to write because you don’t really know what you want to say or what you really think. I’ve found that once I think about my topic for awhile and give it time to gestate, the words often just flow.

The hard part is when you’re under pressure or badly prepared. The physical act of writing (at least in my head) should be just the hardcopy artifact of some kind of thought and a conclusion (or, “point,” as the kids say). More often than not, when I’m banging my head against the wall, it’s because I’m trying to attach words to an incomplete thought. Of course stress just compounds this.

Great comments, all! I love this.

Ah the irony… I came across this article while reading bOINGbOING while avoiding writing a report for work. If only “write crap” was different from how the report would turn out anyway.

Rebecca’s comment meshes with mine— I used to restrict myself to just seven words. No matter what came into my head I could only write the first seven words and then I had to wait until my next block of time to write about it. It’s maddening how well it works— I end up consuming myself reading and researching and trying (impossibly) not to think about what else I want to write.

Nothing like the forbidden :)

Thank you. These are great tips, and I will probaly try each and everyone of them over the next 6 months.

I was always told, when i get stuck, do not work at home, too many distractions. It also helped when I moved my office into the basement. -larry

I’m all about the cafe writing. I actually feel embarrassed when I’m sitting at a table by myself with my laptop open and nothing happening. It forces me to type something even if it’s drivel. In this case a WiFi cafe is the enemy.

I swiped a piece a couple of years ago from the American Journalism Review site. It was by Steve Buttry, Writing Coach, Omaha World-Herald. Thanks Steve, your work has got me going many times.

It’s all good advice, but for me the keys are the following two paragraphs:

“Identify the minimum story. Decide early what your minimum story is, the story that answers the basic who, what, when, where questions. This is the story that meets basic levels of journalistic competence and allows you to keep drawing a paycheck next week. This is your first goal.

“Identify the maximum story. The maximum story is the story that readers will be talking about at work and in coffee shops the next day. This is the story that your editors and readers will remember, that marks you as a star performer. This story may answer difficult how, why, so what, or how much questions, or it may address the who-what-when-where questions in greater depth. The maximum story will have such enticing elements as setting, plot, characters, and dialogue. You are looking for elements that might make this story especially memorable.”

Google tells me I’m not the only one who saved this article: http://www.copydesk.org/words/writingclearly.htm

When I am really really stuck on a project - especially getting started - I go to the local community college and find an empty classroom and SPREAD OUT to use all the tables I want and use the CHALKBOARDS to build the structure. I used to copy the board drawings, now I take HD pictures which I can decipher, as needed, on my computer.

The best advice I’ve had is that when you are finishing for the day leave something to write about for the following day. Make a couple of notes on what comes next then leave it.

Hemmingway called it “Leaving water in the well”.

The next day when you sit down to write you have a guide as to what to do and you get right into it. I never get writers block when I’m on a roll. The thing that usually stops me in the middle of a writing day is TOO MANY ideas over-flowing. I have to stop and write down notes and chapter ideas… which of course innoculates me against writers block on other days.

My personal mantra:

“Don’t get it right, get it written”

Which I guess is just another way of saying your “write crap, first draft sucks” rule.

Orthogonal to the “unplug the router” bit is set your email client to only check manually—“You’ve got mail” every 5 minutes can be a total productivity killer.

Great post. I’ll try your hints and see how it goes!

There’s no such thing as writer’s block!

Simply lower your standards.

Seriously. Works every time. Edit later.

A friend of mine lent me her AlphaSmart Dana — which saved me a few times from writer’s block. It’s very portable and has great battery life, so grabbing it and going elsewhere to write, off the ‘net, boosted my productivity.

“unplug the router” - great notion, and incredibly difficult to do. The temptation to verify every phrase one writes is almost entirely irresistible when access to Google exists.

I’ve resorted to the stripped-down user account (named “The Zone” - ah, if only) for writing, with no email client. The only apps are TextEdit and Typewriter Keyboard, which is a cool little gimmick that provides a modicum of the satisfaction and momentum that come from writing in atoms rather than mere bits.

The danger with OSX is that switching between accounts will prove too easy, but I find that having a different-looking desktop and practically no apps available does the trick pretty well, and that the visual cube-rotation thing that OSX does when switching between accounts provides enough of a separation.

Of course, I’m very much on deadline right now, sitting in a cafe, and obviously not in my “writing” account. Argh.

The two things that worked, without fail, to overcome writer’s block when I was writing my two novels was 1. Read favorite passages in other people’s books (often just a paragraph would do) and rewrite them 2. Start writing the middle (or another section) of the book, even if I had no idea what was going to happen.

one addition: Go do a cartwheel.

I’m dead serious. I was just feeling totally dead, sapped of any energy whatsoever, when it occurred to me that I needed to make myself laugh. So here I am, walking down an empty hallway, trying to figure out what I could do that would make me laugh. Clearly, it would have to be something totally spontaneous and absurdly immature. Hence, a cartwheel.

Totally revamped my day.

I had writers block for three years after my first four novels were published. Horrible. It’s entirely a lack of confidence and decisiveness. I haven’t had it since and I’ve written four more suspense novels, all much more successful than my first books. Ways to fight it: —agree entirely with using a laptop or account with very limited resources (on a Mac, an older system with WriteNow 4.0.2 as your only app works wonders) —get the hell away from the Internet —try Ulysses (www.blue-tec.com). It’s a creative writer’s word processor/project manager for OS X and offers a fullscreen mode where it’s just your words on the screen—no Desktop, no Dock, no other applications. It turns your screen into a piece of paper. It’s amazing. —I keep a Moleskine pocket notebook with me ALWAYS and jot down every idea/action/to do that remotely relates to writing. That way there’s never a shortage of ideas. Ever. The Moleskine has replaced my PDA, which was good to keep calendar/to-dos but not to take notes with.

Great site, by the way, Merlin, always helpful.

I never used to write first drafts. Or rather, my first draft was my only draft. Now that I’m attempting more ambitious writing projects, the understanding that my first draft is just an architecture to write over later is an idea that keeps me working even when the quality of my work is depressingly poor. Write crap!!

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I’ve somehow found that I do my best thinking in the bathroom. I still haven’t the foggiest idea why. But if I need to get through a block of any sort, it’s to the bathroom I go…

Sandra Cisneros tells us, Write about what makes you different. Your readers want to see the world through your eyes. The reader leads me, asking the questions I must answer and that bloody block is part of that question …

I especially enjoyed the links. Ta!