Writing slumps happen to all of us. One moment you’re flying on the wings of inspiration; the next, you’re in a frustrated mess, unable to move forward with whatever project you’ve been working on. Here are ArtsHub‘s five tried and tested ideas you can try to jump-start your stuttering creative engine and unplug writers’ block.
In this article:
1. Read outside your writing genre
So you’re a novelist? Pick up a collection of poetry and flick through its pages. You write non-fiction? Go and race through a high-speed crime thriller for a change in pace. The point is to find inspiration in other people’s art and sometimes this can happen in unexpected places.
2. Take a break from writing
There’s nothing more counterproductive than trying to force the words when they are just not coming, so just leave your laptop idle and go for a walk, visit a gallery, have coffee with a friend, groom your cat. Do anything but obsess about your work. The mind can still ruminate subconsciously while you are tending to other tasks. Maybe, when you are pulling out weeds, the denouement to that story you’ve been thinking about will present itself unbidden.
3. Just write anything
Alternatively, just keep on writing, but don’t worry about the quality of your work just yet. What exactly is writers’ block, but simply a stoppage of actual writing? So you need to exercise these writing muscles and pen anything. Listen to some songs and transcribe the lyrics. Put down some free thinking, stream-of-consciousness thoughts. It’s all practice. Perhaps within the gibberish, there will be a phrase or idea you can use.
4. Clear your mind
There could be too much buzzing in your head so meditation and yoga can centre your creative mind and allow for a more restive state that, in turn, may bring forth clarity and inspiration. While in the middle of the downward dog pose you may finally see what was wrong with your manuscript’s saggy middle section.
Read: Gina Rinehart’s own creativity revisited as she attacks Namatjira’s portrait
5. Talk to a writer friend
Sometimes all we need is help from a fellow scribe who understands the trials of writing. So, go and chat to a friend who’s also working on a creative piece. If you can brainstorm your problems together, they can possibly suggest a way to ease you out of your blockage by simply talking things through. They have the necessary empathy and the experience.
