There's only one valid excuse for you to let writer's block beat you: "coma."
We've all found ourselves staring at that empty paper or monitor screen, waiting in frustration for inspiration to leap into our fingers. You can cure writer's block forever. All you have to do is walk away from that blank paper long enough to open your mind. Here are six tips for fiction writers and six more for non-fiction writing - guaranteed results, or your money back.
Six tips to cure writer's block for fiction:
1. Close your eyes and listen.
Choose a different sense to take in the world around you. Listen to all the noises in an empty house or a crowded mall. Or go to a restaurant and concentrate on your sense of smell. Examine something familiar by touch. Enlist a friend to help you do blind taste-testing; you'll be amazed how foods taste when you can't see them.
2. Put your head in the clouds.
Open up a folding chair or beach blanket in your back yard and ponder the clouds passing over. Pick one and decide what it might be. Kids do this all the time, and they NEVER suffer writer's block! Try it at night, when the stars are out. Create your own constellations.
3. Spy on a crowd.
Grab a corner seat at Starbucks or your favorite diner. Watch the other customers and take notes. Give them names and occupations or life-threatening diseases. Choose three "characters" of diverse backgrounds and compose a two-page short story about them on the spot.
4. Take a walk.
Choose a direction and set a time limit, then walk. This works in the woods or on busy city streets. When time's up, absorb your surroundings in great detail. Use that setting in something you've been working on, or compose a fresh story centered on it.
5. Listen to the radio.
Every song tells a story. Even talk radio can lead to unforeseen ideas. Pick one song and write a prose version of it. Use a discussion you heard on AM radio as a scene detail in a longer work. Next time you're reading a novel, notice how often authors include something from the airwaves in their narrative.
6. Phone a friend.
Drop everything you had planned and call someone you haven't talked to recently. Don't set an agenda, just talk. Ask your friend what she's been doing today or this week. Let the conversation go wherever it wants to. Take notes. How can you go wrong by using this suggestion?
Six tips to cure writer's block for non-fiction articles:
1. Exit your comfort zone.
Choose a topic that baffles you, or one you've never thought about before. Write a short essay - a press release, for instance - about one specific piece of this topic. Don't spend an hour doing research; just dig in and write. When the subject isn't familiar, you can't help but inject a fresh viewpoint.
2. Apply for a new job.
Not literally, just do it in your head. Write your cover letter about "why I want to be a smoke jumper" or "why I would be the best paralegal you've ever hired." This is similar to #1, but focused on the workplace. Because you'll have to re-invent yourself, this exercise leads to new insights about YOU.
3. Do an on-the-spot interview.
Take your notepad or voice recorder to a familiar place and become a reporter. Give yourself an assignment and choose someone there as your subject. Don't be shy; people LOVE to be interviewed. Grill your waitress about her job for an article about "best jobs I've ever had." Ask the guy behind the newsstand about "what's hot off the presses?" Although this is an exercise, you just might end up with a great story!
4. Mine the Reader's Digest for ideas.
Every month this little magazine offers something for everyone. Don't like any of the articles? Try one of the Humor sections instead. Turn something funny into a serious essay, or vice-versa. No one can pick up a copy without finding some small bit that interests them.
5. Review the mundane.
Write a short review of some basic product you find lying around the house - a blow dryer, for instance, or your favorite pen. Go to the grocery store with $2, buy something, try it and review it. Whatever you write will be publishable somewhere on the Internet, guaranteed. It's fun and easy. I have a bottle of "The Works - Disinfectant Toilet Bowl Cleaner" right here. It's worth a shot.
6. Get out!
Turn off the TV and shut down your computer. Close that book you've been reading. Turn off the radio in your car and GO. Somewhere, anywhere - but make it a place you haven't visited before. Try that new pizza shop downtown, or visit the Goodwill over on Maple Street (take a donation). Just break your routine for an hour or two and recharge your batteries. If you don't come back with a fresh idea, you did it wrong.
Now go out there and write something. Hey, how about an interview? "What's your most painful memory?" This will only take ten minutes. Sit right over here.