Author: Vidhyalakshmi
Ever felt stuck and didn’t know what to write? Ever felt your mind is bustling with ideas, but you are not able to write anything? Ever had a situation where you just sat in front of a blank screen for a long time and couldn’t write a word? Well, I’ll say this is very normal. Currently, even I am facing the same situation. So this write-up is a thanks to my friend, who gave me the idea to write about writer’s block.
Before knowing this about term, I thought that I had reached the maximum of the creativity quota I had, and it’s very haunting to even think about that. The main thoughts that dominate my mind whenever I have a block are “Am I even capable of writing?”, “Maybe I am not that creative?”, “Maybe I am not talented enough to write something; I think I should not be writing.” The last one is a little extreme, but it happens, and when this happens, do not stop writing. Commonly, people worry about experiencing this block. But all you need to is figure out why you have it. It is as simple as that. There are mainly just three reasons, that lead to me experiencing this block.
- Fear
It is mainly the fear of putting my ideas out there. For example, I always wanted to write about racism. But, I still never wrote a single word in that regard because of how controversial the topic is.
- Perfectionism
Well, it is very genuine to want to do your best every single time and get everything right from the first sentence. Unfortunately, trying to write the perfect sentence or paragraph will lead to not writing a single word.
- Self-criticism
We are our worst critics. We tend to compare our work with other writers (mostly the successful ones). But how will you know the worth of your work unless you put it out there?
Well, listening to people’s advice, I tried following some methods to overcome this block.
- Talk to your friends.
It is one of the easiest methods that you can do from the place you are sitting in. And it is one of the most efficient techniques in the current lockdown situation. As I said in the beginning, I got the idea to write on this topic through my friend.
- Take a long walk
What can be more therapeutic than taking a long walk with your favorite music playing and getting out of the four walls of your room?
- Recycle
Recycle your previous ideas. Read all your previous work and try to add more to it. For example, if you wrote a movie review, try writing it in another perspective. Watch the movie again if you want and write on how it made you feel when you watch it for the second time. It is going to be different as you grow every day, and your perspective changes every day.
- Freewrite
Just do not care about punctuation and write it like the way you text your friends, and after you feel that the idea is coming out pretty good, correct your spellings, punctuation, and grammar.
And then when you actually try to overcome the so-called horrifying writer’s block, you realise that there is nothing scary about it.
