Overcoming Writer's Block - Just Write It

When the powers-that-be at Nike came up with their Just Do It motto, they were aiming it, of course, at athletes. They weren't thinking of writers, but writers would do well to adopt a similar motto. Just Write It. Too often we sit and stare at a blank page, wasting valuable writing time because we are anxious about what may appear before us if we just let our imaginations go. We have probably developed the mistaken belief that good writing is good writing from the moment it hits the page, and that to write anything less, even for a moment, would brand us as something not quite worthy of the Pushcart Prize.

This is magical thinking. Do you imagine that Muhammad Ali started life as a prizewinning fighter? He started life as a little boy. But with the proper nurturing, he grew into a force to be reckoned with. You have to think of your writing drafts in much the same way - something to be nurtured into shape, as opposed to something that must leap from your head fully formed. After all, you're not Zeus.

Some of my best writings have started life as a confusing jumble of images and gramatically challenged rambling. For this reason, I often think of the job of the writer as very similar to the job of a sculptor - to chip away the unusable and leave something beautiful in its place. The difference is that we as writers have to first create the stone from which we work.

Not everything you ever write will be your best. In fact, you will probably write a lot of turkeys in order to get to the good stuff. You have to understand, however, that being a good writer doesn't mean you never engage in bad writing. Being a good writer means that you often engage in good writing. The rest is preliminary work.

That is probably the most difficult thing I ever had to learn as a writer. Now I write terrible things with glee, knowing that they will probably turn into something interesting later, and knowing that I am free from that terrible affliction known as writer's block. Suffering from writer's block is a sure sign that you have begun taking your writing too seriously. Let it be play. Let it be fun. Let the words romp together on the page as though that page were a playground, and then see what happens. When something wonderful occurs, work with it. Don't lament every bit of writing that doesn't turn into a masterpiece. After all, it is perfectly permissible to hide those.