Whats Really Making it Hard for You to Write

Have you ever reached a frustrating writer's block and suddenly felt a bowl of ice cream calling your name? Have you ever ran out of ideas for topics and suddenly felt the urge to get up and run to the all night grocery store in order to grab a big bag of something that crunches really loud when you eat it? I bet you call yourself just a bit hungry. Well, you do not even realize that what you're really doing is letting food get in the way of your writing. Here's how it happens.

When you reach writer's block you are unconsciously looking for some way to cure it. You do one of three things. You eat, nap, or do something else other than write. You have all kinds of excuses for why you need some ice cream or cookies. You say to yourself that you did not get any sleep last night. You tell yourself that you have not eaten in the last few hours, and you do not realize that you are merely making excuses to get up and leave that challenge that is before you: You need to write a certain number of articles in a particular day.

However, the food calls from the cabinets. Tea and coffee tempt you because they contain caffeine and you think that the caffeine will make you more attentive and keep you awake. Sugar screams from the cabinets because it also provides a natural short term high, and unconsciously, you believe that sugar will give you the energy boost you need in order to keep on going just like the energizer bunny. After a sugar fix, you believe that you should be able to write all night long. However, as soon as you take a bite of something, you start to get sleepy.

Sleep beckons you from underneath your covers. The food you have eaten is taking a lot of your blood in order to digest it and you body is feeling very weary and tired. Before you know it, you are in your huge full sized bed underneath the covers with your laptop on your lap convincing yourself that you can actually get some work done this way. Before you know it, you are setting your cell phone alarm for two hours later, while saying to yourself, "just forty-five minutes." Forty-five minutes becomes 2 hours and then you are saying, " I have to go to work really early in the morning. I need to stop being so hard on myself."

The way to get out of the vicious cycle that goes on when you bring food into the writing process is to put the fork down, and ask yourself " Why am I really eating?" Ask yourself if you are procrastinating. You are faced with the challenge of coming up with a new topic to write about. You cannot think of one, so you take a half an hour and go eat something. That is pure procrastination. You're not really hungry. Really, you are scared that you will not be able to think of anything. Therefore, you run to the cure, food. Comforting isn't it? Food may make you comfortable, but remember this. The last thing food is going to do is make you is money.