You’ve had one month to create about 20,000 words for your favorite client, but with only one week until deadline you’ve only managed half. Hour after unproductive hour passes at your desk. You’ve refilled your coffee cup three times, taken two lunch breaks, and still your blank screen blinks back at you. There are simply no words left in your head.
Repeat after me: There is no such thing as writer’s block.
I’m kidding. Writer’s block not only exists, it comes to life most often right before a stressed-out deadline. Here’s how to karate chop your writer’s block if it even tries to sneak into your office and take your writing voice.
Walk away from words. Written, spoken, sung in falsetto, all of them. Don’t call your mom, don’t watch a TED Talk, don’t turn on iTunes, and don’t even think of running to happy hour. The easiest way to refill your word tank is to wait silently until yours return.
Walk away. Get up from your workspace, walk out the door, and just walk away. If it’s cold, throw on a coat. If it’s sunny, remember sunscreen. But don’t overthink it; just get up and out. The fresh air has a way of breathing life into our creativity.
Borrow someone else’s words. We’ve all got a favorite writer with whom we wish we could trade words. Mine is Neil Gaiman. In fact, I’ve got one his quotes hanging next to my desk: “Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.”
I’ve rewritten excerpts from my most-loved Gaiman books just to experience how it must feel to write words like that. This practice never fails to inspire.
(Note: Do not publish said rewritten excerpts! That is another post altogether, titled “How to Completely Ruin Your Reputation as a Writer and Never Get Hired Again.”)
If all else fails, eradicate the term from your vocabulary. A surgeon doesn’t show up for a triple bypass and tell the patient “Sorry, I’m just not feeling this today.” She doesn’t have that luxury, and writers don’t either. There are words waiting in the operating room, and your client is waiting hopefully just outside recovery. Bring good news. 30,000 words, coming right up. This piece will live. Not only that, it will live a long life.