The endless writer’s block

October 25, 2024

While I like the abundance of written word available on the internet, I am a bit dismayed when I come across an article unavailable except from a deep email link from The Imperfectionist newsletter by Oliver Burkeman.

The topic of creativity advice feels so dull and repetitive since I have been reading about it off and on for several years. There are two highlights from his newsletter on the topic of writer’s block I find helpful.

Write for 15 minutes

From Paul Bloom’s newsletter, Virginia Valian wrote Learning to Work after finding herself paralyzed by anxiety being unable to work on her PhD. She didn’t try to power through her anxiety or eliminate it, but rather resolving to work on her thesis every day for just 15 minutes.

From one perspective, life is just one long sequence of 15-minute periods, stacked next to each other. In other words: you never have to do anything for more than 15 minutes! You may just sometimes have to string a few of them end-to-end.

Write without stopping

From Deep Freewriting (book) by Stephen Lloyd Webber. Before reading the book, Burkeman says how he feel the technique as the domain of amateurs.

Instead of holding back from writing until you know what you want to say – which leads to a vicious circle of stopping, deleting, and rewriting everything a hundred times – the commitment to keeping moving means you just write stuff.

Neither of these techniques are all too groundbreaking on their own. It’s coming to conclusion the way out of a creative block is much simpler than we imagine.

Or do nothing

Outside of the all consuming nature of the web and attractiveness of reading about the business of increasing your writing productivity, another option remains. Do nothing. Sit there and contemplate what you are doing. Do something else unrelated to writing. Shut off your computer, go outside have a coffee. Write a few stray thoughts if you can. Don’t worry about being empty without ideas. At some point they will come.