Some Roman or other wrote that writer's itch is an incurable disease. The problem is that the symptoms can be very painful. The most serious of these symptoms is known as "writer's block." Writer's block is a general inability to do anything than stare at an empty sheet of paper and throw sharpened pencils at the ceiling, fiddle with the return on the typewriter, or flip from your word processing program in search of the latest distraction in which you have no interest other than getting away from a blank screen.
What is the cure? There isn't one. Remember? It's an incurable disease. There is, however, effective therapy to prevent breakouts of writer's block, or at least ameliorate the more debilitating aspects of it. The best therapy, counterintuitive as it seems, is . . . threats and violence.
By "threats and violence," I don't mean that you subject yourself to physical or mental punishment from others or even yourself. That's even more counterproductive than finding every excuse not to write, or wailing and moaning that the inspiration won't come. (Of course, that can get physically painful, too, especially if you're deeply into beating your breast with a rock, wearing hair-shirts, or self-flagellation with actual whips instead of words and thoughts.)
No, by "threats and violence," I mean the embarrassment that comes from not getting something written when you've made a commitment. This can take many forms, from the humiliation of not meeting your self-imposed promise to your blog readers to post daily the extremely interesting (i.e., boring) events of your life, to trying to dig your way through to China with the toe of your shoe as your boss asks you (in a kindly and fatherly/motherly way, of course) why in the aitch-ee-double toothpicks you didn't submit the report on time.
Paradoxically, the cure for writer's block, the inability to write, is . . . to write. Anything. Don't even think about picking a topic. Pull down a dictionary or encyclopedia, open it at random, poke your finger at the page, and write one hundred words on the subject or word that your finger lands on. You may have to do a little research, but that shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes. Oddly enough, after you've done this a few times, you'll find yourself writing much more than one hundred words. The problem then is trying to keep within the limit, and start writing quality.
Therein lies the second trap and cause of writer's block. Most people think that writer's block is caused by little or no inspiration. Wrong! That is a serious cause, of course, but the worst sort of writer's block is caused by the self-imposed demand for perfection and the desire to do yourself one better. Writers especially get into this quicksand when they think what they write has to be, like a Martha Stewart party, absolutely perfect. No, that's what drafts are for, that's what the reading public is for, and a writer is often not the best judge of his or her own work.
Harper Lee, who wrote the best-selling "To Kill a Mockingbird," fell victim to this aspect of the disease. Having turned out what many people regarded as a Great American Novel, having it turned into a film featuring what many people regard as Gregory Peck's greatest performance, so on, so forth . . . she froze. She started another novel, and couldn't finish it. She labored over sentences, words, even punctuation, and never got more than a few chapters semi-completed. She couldn't compete with herself, and destroyed the manuscript. Ms. Lee forgot one of the premier rules that every writer should keep in his or her head: Harlan Ellison's "Ninety-nine percent of everything is crap."
Reread the sentence with which I began this essay. I remembered that some Roman or other said something about the need of a writer to write, but I couldn't remember which one. The temptation was to stop, do research, find the exact quote, unearth the Latin original, do a new translation, then start rereading the poetry of Catullus. Right. Guess how much writing I would have gotten done.
I don't completely agree with Mr. Ellison, and I find his writing pompous and self-righteous . . . but he can write, regardless what his own opinion of his own writing is (and I think he was referring to other people's efforts, judging by the territorial imperative he exhibited a few years ago when someone pirated his presumably ninety-nine percent crap writing). The point is that, don't get caught in the search for perfection. Let your readers decide whether or not it's good. If not, work on it. If they do judge it good, do it again, and work in some improvements, knowing all the while that you're not going to be perfect. You'll find yourself getting better with every word you write.
As a bonus, the more you write, regardless how good or bad it is, the more you find to write about. Inspiration becomes no problem at all. Professional writers are often asked, "Where do you get all your ideas?" The more misanthropic sort sneer and chase the questioner away. The friendlier sort and those more attuned to keeping the public happy and buying their books, modestly smile and say something to the effect that, "It just sort of comes to me." The extremely honest ones will throw up their hands and exclaim in despair, "What do you mean, where do I get all my ideas? The real question is how the heck do I find the time to write down all the ideas I have? They don't stop! Why am I wasting my time talking to you when I could be writing?"
If you want an immediate "cure" for writer's block (again, remember that the writing disease itself is incurable), join an organization like Helium. As you rate, you'll find yourself with an opinion on at least one of the topics. When that happens (as was the case with this piece), start writing. Could you do it better if you put more work into it, and weren't in the middle of rating? Of course. That's not the point. The cure and preventive for writer's block is not (necessarily) to write well, but to write at all.