What if I told you it’s possible to destroy writer’s block forever? A big claim, but I know this to be true, because I’ve seen from my own experience. Writer’s block doesn’t exist. Yes, you can get stuck. Sure, plenty of your writing will make you cringe and want to hide under a rock. Of course, you’ll have plenty of times when you know you should be writing but you don’t.
This isn’t writer’s block. It’s you worrying you’re not good enough and focusing on your finished product before you’ve gone through the hard work of the writing process. You’re discouraged. You feel blocked, but you can get past it.
Here’s the secret to destroy writer’s block.
Treat your writing like a business.
Have you ever told someone at work that you can’t do your job because you’re feeling blocked? Have you missed meetings without reason because something undefinable stopped you? Probably not. Not if you plan on keeping your job.
You must treat your writing the same way
When you’re stuck at work, what do you do? You ask advice. You ask for help. You do the job anyway, even if it’s not what you consider your best work. Your research ways to help you finish.
Six powerful books to help you destroy writer’s block
These six books offer insight and practical exercises to show you how to keep going in spite of feeling blocked. They are not your typical writing books, though. They’re business books. They’re the books you’ll find on the shelves of business leaders and on the curriculum of Seth Godin’s altMBA. They’ve inspired thousands of people to move past fear and burst through creative blocks to succeed. And they can work for you and your writing, too!
“The 5 Second Rule” by Mel Robbins
In The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work and Confidence with Everyday Courage, Mel Robbins describes one simple strategy to get you moving and doing. In short, the moment you have a desire to do something, the smallest thought that tells you “Maybe I should write,” you act.
What usually happens when that thought enters our heads? We think about doing. Then we think again, and again. Time passes and we talk ourselves out of action. Mel’s 5-second system asks you to break your brain pattern by counting from down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 the moment you have the thought to do something. Imagine yourself as a rocket ship, she says, counting down to launch. When you hit the number one, propel yourself out of inertia and DO!
When you get into the habit of doing, you suddenly find yourself writing regularly, finishing your work and sending it out to publish.
Life is hard already, yet we make it so much harder when we listen to our fears, we convince ourselves to wait, and we hold our greatest selves back. We all do it…. We hold ourselves back at work, at home, and in our relationships.
The question is, why do we do this? The answer is brutal. You can call it a fear of rejection, or a fear of failure, or a fear of looking bad. The reality is, we hide because we are afraid to even try.
Her talk hit a chord with so many people, she had to write the book.
“Story Driven” by Bernadette Jiwa
Story Driven: You Don’t Need To Compete When You Know Who You Are highlights the importance of our personal story and our values as a way to connect with others. This is her approach to marketing. Begin with who you are and what you want, then sales will follow naturally.
I’ve met few writers who enjoy writing. Who wants to sell yourself and your writing over and over to a potentially hostile audience? Jiwa asks us to consider something different. What if your writing is just what someone needed? What if your story inspires, builds, creates? What if there are people out there, your people, who know exactly what you mean and needed to read what you wrote?
When you tap into your purpose, it’s easier to write, because you’re writing your truth. Then when it’s time to market, go out and find the people who connect with your values and show them your book.
The Theory of Self-Determination explains that human nature exhibits the inherent growth tendencies of effort, agency and commitment. We are driven by our innate psychological need for competence, relatedness and autonomy. We are hardwired to fulfill our potential. We choose to do things that don’t directly or materially benefit us because it feels good to do them and because doing them contributes to our well being. We are our best selves when we have a sense of control over our destiny and feel supported by our community to achieve mastery.
“Thanks for the Feedback” by Douglass Stone and Sheila Heen
I can’t even count the number of people who have told me they stopped writing after someone gave them feedback on their work. It wasn’t even all negative feedback. When people feel misunderstood or unheard, it stops the writing process. Sometimes permanently,
Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well taught me a different way to see feedback. It teaches how to respond to feedback that makes you feel terrible in a constructive way. It shows how your response to feedback is as important to the writing process as actually writing your first draft.
Why? Because feedback helps you improve. Without it, you stagnate.
People have told me my writing is absolute crap and no one will ever read it, I don’t care. I measure their feedback by how much it helps improve my writing. Even awful feedback can benefit writing, and if it doesn’t then I move on.
The biggest mistake we make when trying to create boundaries is we assume other people understand what’s going on with us. Surely they know we’re overloaded or unhappy or struggling, and that their feedback is making things worse. But often they don’t. We may not have told them, or if we have, we were indirect or unclear or they just weren’t listening. It’s true they haven’t exactly gone out of their way to figure us out, but that’s not within our control, and frankly, it’s just par for the course. They’ll never be as interested in figuring out our boundaries as we are.
“The Art of Possibility” by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander
The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life by Rosamunde Stone Zander, a psychologist and Benjamin Zander, an orchestra conductor shows us how to unstick our thinking in order to see differently. The book is structured by “rules.” Things like “give yourself an A” and “remember rule six” become catchphrases to help you through rough spots when you feel like giving up on your work.
My favorite rule is “give yourself an A.” Meaning, you assuming when you begin that you will do good work. You give yourself permission to do well and believe in yourself. Very different than worrying you’ll never finish and that your writing sucks and who wants to read it anyway.
You can apply the rule to others as well. Instead of worrying that your editor will hate your writing and will tear your work apart and the end of your writing career is near, you can instead assume they will do their jobs well in order to help you write a better piece of writing and so everyone can publish the best possible work.
The practice of giving the A both invents and recognizes a universal desire in people to contribute to others, no matter how many barriers there are to its expression. We can choose to validate the apathy of a boss, a player or a high school students and become resigned ourselves or we can choose to honor in them an unfulfilled yearning to make a difference. How often, for instance, do we see teenagers slumped in that same resigned position….? How differently would we understand and speak to them were we to hand them permanent, unqualified As, without denying anything that happens in our dealings with them?
“The Art of Asking” by Amanda Palmer
I almost didn’t include The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help book, because the advice within sometimes feels more like entitlement than asking for help. But then, that’s kind of the point. What struck me as most important and inspiring about the book Palmer’s unwavering ability to keep going in spite of potential negative consequences. Whether she was broke or feared intense rejection or people hated her work or she got no response, she kept going. She kept working in spite of times when people hated her work and often hated her as well. She ignores all that and instead focuses on her vision.
When you worry about what others think or wallow in rejection, your vision fades. You can’t act on it. Instead, Palmer encourages us to know our artistic vision, believe in it and find others who want us to show them what we see.
It’s about finding your people, your listeners, your readers and making art for them. Not for the masses, not for the critics, but for your ever widening circle of friends. It doens’t mean you’re protected from criticism. If you lean out the window and shout down to your friends, you might get an apple chucked at you head. But if your art touches a single heart, strikes a single nerve, you’ll see people quietly headed your way and knocking on your door. Let them in.
Check out her 2013 TED Talk on the same subject:
“Steal Like An Artist” by Austin Kleon
Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative wasn’t written on a computer. It was drawn with pen and pencil on paper, then cut into pieces and puzzled back together until it became a book. Kleon, thus, highlights the most important part of the creative process. You must stretch your limits and try new things!
You can’t just sit in front of your computer if you want your writing to grow. I mean, you can, you can sit there, day and night, routinely putting words down and muscle your way through until the end. Problem is, most people hit a block and some point and never come back.
Instead, step away. Draw, cut, shape and mold in the physical world. Open your brain to new ways of thinking and creating.
Steal Like An Artist is all about opening your mind to creativity and letting things spill out that you may not have known were there. That’s where the fun begins.
Work that only comes from the head isn’t any good. Watch a great musician play a show. Watch a great leader give a speech. You’ll see what I mean. You need to find a way to bring your body into your work. Our nerves aren’t a one way street — our bodies can tell our brains as much as our brains tell our bodies. You know that phase “going through the motions”? That’s what’s so great about creative work. If we just start going through the motions, if we strum a guitar or shuffle sticky notes around a conference table or start kneading clay, the motion kickstarts our brain into thinking.
As you finish reading this post, maybe you’re inspired to do something right this very second. Maybe you’re going to finally start that book. Or jot down notes for an article you want to write. Or pull out crayons and paper and begin to draw even though you think you’re a terrible artist.
Take Mel Robbins advice and count down from five. Before you hit the number one, blast your butt out of your chair, go get whatever you need to write, draw or paint. Ask for help when you need it. Ignore self-doubt and instead assume what you make will be wonderful. Take immediate action on that initial spark. Don’t let it fade, and instead go out there and create!
