Hi! Your Writing Is Amazing And I Always Love Reading It. I've Been Having Writers Block And Haven't

Hi! Your writing is amazing and I always love reading it. I've been having writers block and haven't been able to write anything for a very long time. I don't write short stories or anything like that, but I do write songs and sometimes poems. Do you have any advice for writes block? Or any websites or apps that could possibly help? Thank you for your time! (:

Well thank you, and certainly, I am quite often plagued with  blocks so I’m familiar with that particular frustration. Here’s how I’ve dealt with it:

1. Read, and read broadly: watch how other writer’s approach scene, character, and plot. Don’t copy or steal, but observe and apply techniques. 

2. Engage in small experiences: eat something, go for a walk, stretch, run uphill for as long as you can. These sort of things, when really paid attention to, can get you to words. For example, if you eat a strawberry and really focus, you can often figure out something about its taste and texture that isn’t wholly obvious or stereotypical. 

3. Combine experiences: I’ve mentioned before that I don’t think you have to solely “write what you know” because this will often keep you from writing a lot of things. However, I do think you should try and have a gateway for writing an experience. Example: If you want to write about someone falling from the deck of a ship in a storm, you don’t have to have fallen yourself, but maybe do a trust-fall with someone or take a very cold shower. Theses are gates and platforms you can write from without actually having to drown to write a drowning. 

4. Get away: Stop trying to write and go somewhere far from pen and laptop. Do something you haven’t done, especially if that something involves another form of art. Museums are great.

Most of these tips are about attention. They revolve around really paying attention to where and what you are and what you’re experiencing. I love to write minutia and try to give it greater significance than its mass. In order to do this, particularly in an age where our attention is so spliced with ads and technology and ridiculous needs to never get bored, you’ve got to get away from thoughts and into feelings. Thoughts are excellent seeds for writing, but it’s very hard to think yourself into caring irrationally, which I believe is required in a lot of writing (to care about fiction,) so at some point, you’ve got to have an undiluted emotion to get ink from.

I hope this helps somewhat and I’m sorry for the length. As a side note, in the next couple of weeks I’m going to be starting a writing prompt column that I’ll be posting links to once it goes up. 

Best regards,

C. Essington.