Writer's Block by Sarah S

It happens to every writer. You don’t even have to be an author, you could just be writing an email, an essay, a poem, or a school assignment. It happens, out of nowhere, for anyone who’s writing something lengthy.

Writer’s block.

It comes out of nowhere, and it doesn’t go away. Every single moment you’d been writing seems to leave out of nowhere, and every beautiful word you’d put into your incredible piece of literature seems to seem simple and bland. There is not an ounce of creativity in your body. So how can you fix it? Why does it happen? Here’s a few reasons and solutions.

• Take a walk, or go somewhere where you find inspiration. This might be the forest, the lake, a city in the dark, or the Netflix home page. Whatever gets your juices flowing.

• Relax a bit. Some writers stop writing out of fear, either of rejection or simply people seeing your work. Realize that even if some people don’t like your work, there’ll always be other people who love it. Fear is the reason most writers don’t end up successful.

• Eliminate distractions. Seems obvious, right? Sometimes people just don’t realize they’re being distracted, and just can’t seem to figure out why they can’t focus. 

• Change up your environment. Maybe change from a bed to a desk, change up the lighting, or move to a completely different room altogether. 

• Turn on some music. This is only if if doesn’t distract you, of course. Maybe try some classical or jazz music. Music with lyrics tend to distract some people, but not all people.

• Write. I know it sounds like this is exactly what you can’t do, but bear with me here. You can write anything. Write about your sleeping dog, or the house plant next to you, or your dentist appointment last week. If you start writing, generally, you won’t want to stop.

• Finally, if none of those worked for you, just wait. Maybe it’s just not the right time for you to be writing. Go along with your day, take a nap, do some work. You might just need to try again later.

Writer’s block can be super frustrating. Sometimes, you just need a nap. Sometimes, you’re completely empty and need to wait days before any creativity comes back. Remember, you can always go back and change your writing later. Really, the key is to just try your best. If it doesn’t come out good, who cares? Try again later, edit it a bit, ask your friends, whatever. Just know that it’s not the end of the world if your paragraph is a 50 word long run on sentence. Just try your best.