How To Address and Overcome “Writer’s Block” (Hint: We Think It's Actually a Myth)
Caroline Rothstein takes “writer’s block” to task, exploring how accepting it as part of our process helps us write through the moments when we feel stuck.
Writer-poet-performer-educator Caroline Rothstein is the quintessential multi-hyphenate. She’s currently co-writing a musical, writing a novel, writing a screenplay, co-writing a romance novel, writing monthly essays for her own site, sharing her poetry weekly on Instagram, and preparing for the next session of her Narratively Academy class, Deeply Personal: Writing First-Person Essays on Raw and Difficult Topics (the first three sessions all sold out; click here to learn more about the class and grab one of the remaining seats.)
How the heck does she do it all? Well for starters, she doesn’t let herself get stuck! Today, we’re sharing Caroline’s insightful piece on how to get past writer’s block. Whether you’re just getting started on an essay or putting the finishing touches on your entry for our True Romance Writing Prize—deadline is tomorrow!—these tips are gold.
I think “writer’s block” is a myth. A block implies stagnancy. A barrier. An adversary. A wall. But I think what’s really happening when we feel this so-called block is that we need to pause, regroup and take a beat. And I think feeling blocked, or getting stuck as I like to often say, can be a necessary — even essential, and hopefully productive — stage in the writing process.
If I’m not ready to write, I’m not ready to write. If I need to empty my inbox in order to write, or watch multiple episodes of Love Is Blind: UK (like I did to push through the second draft of this very piece), or have a snack or take a walk, then that’s the writing. Or if I need to question my entire existence before I churn out a couple thousand words, that’s the writing process too.
I think the key to addressing and overcoming writer’s block, or whatever we want to call it, is cultivating and nourishing our writing process. Blockage can show up at any point. When we’re getting started. When we’re midway through a draft. When we’re riding the edge of a deadline. When we’re hours into something that was otherwise flowing swimmingly and then poof: We’re stuck treading water and can’t make it to the other side of the pool.
When the writer’s block stage is met with resistance, it may very well become true to its name, blocking us from our organic flow. But when we meet it with preparation (and even expect it to arrive at some point), we can navigate it with ease. That way, anytime we’re “stuck,” we know that we innately have the tools to make it through. Below, some of those very tools and tips to help you hone your creative craft.
TIP ONE: Identify What’s Going On
Because we’re in the literal business of working with words here, I think it behooves us to liberate ourselves from the “block” phraseology. That word itself can literally feel like a limitation and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A little rebranding can go a long emotional and practical way.
As Jeanann Verlee, author of prey, Said the Manic to the Muse and Racing Hummingbirds says, “Writer’s block is a psychological state that all creatives face and someone, somewhere along the course of history, had to give it a name.”
Regardless of what we call it (playwright Jon Adam Ross calls it an “illumination block;” filmmaker, actor and writer Carmen LoBue calls it “akin to a spirit flu;” a character in Katherine Center’s romance novel The Rom-Commer calls it the “yips”), the first step is identifying why we feel blocked or stuck. Is the subject matter challenging, have we momentarily lost morale (in ourselves, the work, the process at large), or is it, perhaps, hard to tap into how we’re feeling about multi-layered content when there’s a literal movie being filmed on our block (I live in a place where this can be a thing!)?
The next step is figuring out what to do about it. “A block is fixed and solid, something you’d move over or around,” says Alizah Salario, deputy managing editor at Stacker Media. “But to get unstuck as a writer, the only way out is through.”
TIP TWO: Tune Into Intuition
I think part of how we get “through,” as Salario notes, is staying attuned to both our internal intuition as a writer, and the inner voice of the piece itself. I believe each piece of writing we create –– whether it’s an article, poem, essay, work of fiction, screenplay, theatrical script, anything at all –– has its own voice that reveals itself to us as we go.
I see myself as a ventriloquist for the unfolding narrative. Knowing my job is to listen to the piece itself helps me in the moments when I’m unsure of where to go next. Not only because I relinquish some of my control and allow the words to take the driver’s seat, but also because it means I’m continually sharpening my intuition.
I also have to listen to myself. I have to know what I can handle at any given moment in my life. Educator, speaker, and producer Dubbs Weinblatt says they most typically get writer’s block when they’re “not ready to write something.” What I love about this is how they listen to their inner knowing, rather than pushing past the stuck before it’s ready to be pushed.
The more deeply we come to know our own intuitive impulses, as well as the impulses of the work itself, the more we can allow the stuck stage in our writing process to become a dialect that serves as a sounding alarm from within, asking us to do something different — be it to take a break, or forge ahead. In this way, the alleged “writer’s block” can become a building block.
TIP THREE: Set the Stage & Tend to Within
I’m a sucker for what I like to call controlled spontaneity. I like to set up containers that have some boundaries, but then within those boundaries, I can go rogue, ham and buck-f*cking wild.
Same goes for writing. I think setting up controlled spontaneity makes way for the muse to flow with ease, and also for me to stay tapped into my intuition if/when I’m not sure where to go next. Setting the stage for my writing time helps create some consistency that makes it easier for me to maneuver feeling the obstruction when it comes up, as it inevitably will.
I need liquids. Definitely water. Hopefully black or green tea (hot or iced). If I’m at home working on something creative, I sometimes put on this lapis lazuli necklace I got from an acupuncturist in Chicago because it literally looks like a crystal tuning fork and it makes me feel like I’m dancing with the muse (yes, I’m as woo woo as I sound). Sometimes I light a candle on my altar (still woo woo). Sometimes I put my phone in “G.O.A.T” mode (which is a literal picture of my 3-year-old self with a goat) because it makes me feel like I’m my own hype-person when I’m working on something I want to be a slam dunk. Sometimes I’m in “work” mode (a 1995 courtside photo of Michael Jordan aka the actual G.O.A.T.).
Sometimes I put on an intentionally curated Spotify playlist that aligns with the energy of whatever I’m writing. Sometimes I need silence. Sometimes I need a friend’s couch while we parallel play. Or a coffee shop. Or the lobby of the Ace Hotel in downtown Brooklyn. Or a garden. An airplane. And once in a while, my empty bathtub (yes, really). Just like the piece tells me who it wants to be, where it wants to be written is a whole thing too.
And then, once I’ve done all my usuals, if I’m still not feeling ready for words to come out, I take stock of other tools. Usually, this means taking a break and putting the piece aside. Maybe distracting myself with other work, or cleaning my apartment or reading a rom com novel (or, again, watching Love Is Blind: UK). All of this helps me get rid of the excess foam that’s getting in my way. It helps me release any perceived barriers that I feel might be “blocking” me, and gives me permission to recalibrate, recenter and refocus my energy to get out my ya-ya’s.
LoBue describes this as tending to what’s within. “Any way to awaken your spirit from a place of dis-ease to just ease is the route you must take,” they say. “Writer’s block is temporary and the ‘healing balm’ you need may differ each time it shows up.”
Similarly, poet, DJ and writer Eliel Lucero handles writer’s block by putting down their notebook so that they can “try to live a little.” When they return, they feel released of any pressure and they find they’re able to “just write for writing’s sake.”
TIP FOUR: Tap Into Your Passion
Another thing I have to ask myself when I’m feeling blocked or stuck –– no matter where or when it is on the writing process time/space continuum –– is: Why am I writing this in the first place?
Writing is part of my job. Very often, I am literally being contracted and paid by a publication with a deadline and an editor. And often still, I’m regularly working on projects that take months, years, even decades to complete where I’m self-
imposing the deadline (and trust that I sure as shit hope I’ll get paid for it eventually!). Or sometimes, it takes me a while to write a thank you note or a birthday card for a loved one (sorry, y’all), because I’m letting what I want to say really marinate and stew.
For me, whether it’s officially contracted or a sweat-equity passion project, I know that in order to work through any stuckage, I really need to tap into the “illumination” Ross names. I have to regularly ask myself: What about this piece ignites my flame? And not just what, but also why.
When I’m really passionate about something, when it’s coming from the crux and core of my being and I really feel it in my bones, I’m able to push through because I have no choice. There is a fire burning from the inside out.
Verlee feels similarly. She says, “I write when I must. I write when my emotional connection to a given subject compels me to write. Sometimes a social-political issue compels me. Sometimes a personal matter. The only unwavering aspect is that I can’t force it. (I know many writers who differ.) When I ‘sit to write’ as a matter of chore, I gape at a blank page and quickly start to battle my brain over imposter syndrome. I know other writers who can structure their day around writing as a matter of course. Not me. I need to be emotionally connected to the subject.”
Navigating the “why” and “what” of a piece is vital. Like, it took me a minute to figure this piece out (bless my editor who had to suffer through my first draft). But once I got clear on exactly what I wanted to say, and let the process become a meta experience in pushing through the block, I got out of my own way and the prose just spouted out of me like I was a humpback whale.
TIP FIVE: Trust the Process
There’s this framing a lot of my artist and activist friends and I use: process over product. Capitalism, white supremacy culture, patriarchy, ableism (a.k.a. all of our toxic societal acquaintances with whom we really need to collectively break up) are really good at making us think the destination matters more than the journey. But with writing, I have repeatedly found the process is critical and crucial in yielding a strong result. “I think writer’s block is just my ego terrified of writing crap,” Carlos Andrés Gómez, poet and author of Fractures, says. “Be unprecious. The process is the outcome.”
I’ve worked hard to understand my writing process. It is inevitable that at some point during it, I’m likely going to think I’m the best writer of all time. Or that I’m going to churn out a first draft I think is utterly flawless. That is until an editor or friend (or even myself a few hours later) gives it a read and bursts the bubble. Sometimes it’s crushing feedback, sometimes I’m so receptive that I feel it in my bones — they’re spot on. Either way, I will almost always have a love affair with most of my untainted first drafts.
Equally, at some point, I’m likely going to loathe what I’m writing. I’m going to want to give up and doubt my entire life. And it’s likely that the doubt will become so soul-crushing that I’ll also (because I’m dramatic) fling myself into an existential crisis (really, though) and wonder how on earth something I love so gosh darn much can be so gosh darn hard.
I know that somewhere in my process, I’ll likely need to talk it out. Phone or text a friend. Call an editor. Process it in therapy. Even a perseverating conversation with myself by way of Post-its or iPhone notes or a voice memo. My process often requires a mirror to bear witness to my ideas. It helps me get unstuck. So the process too requires processing.
For example, once I figured out what this piece wanted to be, I got so invested that I willfully ignored the timer I set to tell myself to leave my apartment to go to yoga class, and then I got stuck on a Brooklyn bus in rush-hour traffic and was late. (But I did make it. I got off the bus a stop early, ran like I am not at all apt to do and made it in just in time — which is a good thing, because I had loads of epiphanies regarding how to write this piece while tending to my breath.)
And so, what then of my talk of myths?
The dictionary says a myth can be a story “concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.” If “writer’s block” is one of our stories as writers –– a people –– doesn’t it serve us to accept it as a natural phenomenon that is an inevitable part of our writing process?
The next definition is this: “a widely held but false belief or idea.” And I think “writer’s block” is that too. Because in the end, the myth is that there’s some block that keeps us from writing. When we merge the two definitions by accepting it’s a natural part of our process and story as writers, we give ourselves permission to unlock and discover new parts of ourselves and our work. We give ourselves permission to work with and unfurl the block, rather than letting it –– ostensibly –– work and unravel us.
We’re honored to have Caroline Rothstein teaching another session of Deeply Personal, a five-week workshop on Writing First-Person Essays on Raw and Difficult Topics this spring. Sign up now!
Caroline Rothstein is a writer, poet, performer and educator. Her work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, The Guardian, BuzzFeed, Nylon, The Forward, Hey Alma and elsewhere. She tours year-round performing spoken word poetry; public speaking; facilitating workshops; and teaching at schools and venues worldwide.
Jesse Sposato is Narratively’s executive editor. She also writes essays around the internet about feminist things, friendship, parenting and more.
Jackie Ferrentino is an illustrator and cartoonist currently based in NYC. In 2015, she graduated from RISD where she studied illustration.