by Stephen H

Created on: July 24, 2010   Last Updated: August 24, 2010

The empty computer screen stares back at you expectantly with the cursor flashing in admonition at your lack of inspiration.  Performance anxiety enters your head and you think nothing creative will ever be born there again.  You impose pressure on yourself to write something, anything, to free up the flow. 

Deadlines crowd into your mind and increase the anxiety further.  You type out a few sentences and read them back to yourself before heading straight for the delete button.  You know you are facing one of the greatest fears of all writers; writer’s block.  It’s a common, debilitating, but thankfully entirely curable, condition.  It hits professionals and amateurs alike, and the battle with writer’s block will last throughout your entire writing career.  So how are you going to manage it?

There are a range of strategies to help you fight against this scourge and you will probably need to change tactics over time.  Some of the remedies below should be helpful, but you may need to try a combination if singly they are unsuccessful.

1.         Tricks of the Trade

Writing exercises can be a great for stimulating the creative process and getting you writing again.  There are many to choose from, and I include a short selection here which have proved to be useful for me in the past.

Fictionalised fact:     I found this an exceptionally good technique for creating short pieces of prose, and actually got a short story published that was born from this technique.  Given that you are struggling to write and cannot seem to find a way forward, rather than persevere and become more frustrated, put pen and paper to one side and read a newspaper or magazine.  I find the local papers which have a greater reliance on human interest stories the best.

 While you are reading, look out for any articles that interest or fascinate you.  Start thinking around the article, about the characters that inhabit that world, what they have been through and their futures.  Write a short story based on the article and the thinking you have done around it.  Do not be confined by facts and what has been reported, use these merely as a jump start to your imagination.  Change as much as you like to get a good dramatic piece from this.  Things you should definitely change are the character names and probably any place names. 

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