by Gordon Hamilton

Created on: January 04, 2010

What you need to know about writer’s block is very much in the first instance that writer’s block is a symptom of a condition and is not a condition in itself. Although there are many writers who claim to be suffering from writer’s block and believe that it is something which strikes all writers at one time or another for no apparent reason, this is patently not the case.

The process of understanding writer’s block begins with considering the symptoms of writer’s block and how they are most likely to manifest themselves. It may be that the writer is suddenly struck by a lack of ideas as to how they should proceed with a particular piece of writing. The writing may have been proceeding extremely well up to a certain point, when suddenly, where the writer is going with what they are creating appears uncertain or hidden to them. Alternatively, it may be that although the writer has plenty of ideas and knows what they want to say in their writing, they find a frustrating inability to script their writing in to acceptable prose.

Whichever of the two above scenarios may occur, the simple fact is that there is a reason why a successful and/or talented writer suddenly finds themselves stricken in such a fashion. The key is not to stumble blindly on and very possibly produce what is effectively sub-standard work, likely to require extensive revision at a later time. Rather, the writer should consider the cause of the perceived writer’s block and take action to alleviate it from this perspective.

The most common causes of writer’s block include tiredness, or the fact that one has simply been working too long on the piece without a break. When one of these causes applies, the only way in which the writer is going to successfully tackle the problem is by taking a rest from what they are doing and either having a sleep or changing the type of activity in which they are engaging altogether for a time. Either course of action is likely to refresh the mind and stimulate the thought processes, allowing the writer to very effectively continue from whence they left off at a later time.

Unfortunately, a more serious cause of perceived writer’s block is that the writer has exhausted their ability to write upon the particular subject at hand and they have essentially run out of material. Where this is the case, either research may be conducted in to the subject in order to hopefully unearth new, fresh material, or the piece can be abandoned or set aside until a later date when more material may in fact become available.

The only true way for a writer to determine the cause of their writer’s block is to consider how they are feeling both in a mental and physical sense and what is happening at that precise moment, or in their lives in general, to affect these feelings and thus their ability to write. The writer is then required to take very positive action to alleviate these distractions, in whichever form they may take, and free their minds to get on with their writing in their most productive fashion.

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