Stacey Gross
“How to Beat Writer’s Block Once and For All.”
“Fourteen Tips to Blast Through Writer’s Block.”
“Writer’s Block Isn’t Real, You’re Just Incredibly Lazy. And Untalented. And You Should Probably Crawl Under a Rock and Start Living Openly as the Awful, Awful Troll You So Clearly Are.”
Two of these are actual titles to actual blog posts about how to write when your brain is recoiling in horror at the very suggestion of writing.
One is just what my brain says to me, after a certain point, when I’ve been avoiding my desk like it goes to church with my ex-mother-in-law and just spotted me in the produce section.
Either way, as someone who currently turns words into paychecks for a living and stuff, and who has done so for three years about three years ago too, and who routinely destroys what glorious free time in her schedule exists for self-care to write and record for my own projects, which do not award paychecks at all, I can tell you that “writer’s block” is an actual thing.
And, sometimes, the best way out is not always through.
Sometimes being when you are a writer. Or want to be a writer but can’t because your brain recoils in horror…you get it.
Look, I remember being a freshman writing student. I remember sitting in my first Intro to Fiction class thinking about the promissory note I’d just signed and wondering what the glorious secret to writing when your brain refuses to participate and your butt is apparently coated in some chair-phobic new substance probably funded by the goons at Netflix whose job it is to zombify us all could be.
That first class, given such expectations, was the tiniest little bit of a letdown. Because the secret to cracking through Writer’s Block like Seabiscuit out the gate is that there is no secret and you are not Seabiscuit and you probably need to settle down significantly. Because writing – the living of a writing life, which is just the intentional creation of the conditions within which you, personally, can write things that you’d let other people read daily – is a marathon, not the Preakness.
I worked at one newspaper for three years and walked away with nearly 900 bylines in my portfolio.
That’s outrageous.
Nine hundred published stories in three years.
I’m sorry, where is my private jet to Kona, anyhow, and why am I not being served mojitos and answering frantic calls from The Today Show right now.
Nine hundred bylines?
My freshman writing teacher would be so proud.
Except no. He wouldn’t. I mean maybe in a nostalgic, “look how grown up she is” kind of way, if they’re even aware of the fact that I bagged 900 bylines in three years. And neither was my editor.
Because that’s not even outside the fat middle of any bell curve of journalist production rates you put in front of me.
Out of those 900 bylines, probably two-thirds are stories about who seconded what motion at a township supervisors meeting, or a ten-column blip about the switch from peonies to begonias in the planters that line Main Street.
Only about a third of those bylines represent actual compelling stories about people and things that matter to their personal lives, and to the overall spirit of the town I’m paid to chronicle.
Those are the bread and butter stories for me, in terms of craft, but I’ve produced twice as many sentencing rundowns as I have human interest features on Mrs. Jarvis’ 28-year-old Himalayan.
And we can look at this issue from another angle as well.
How many of the 900 bylines I racked up did I actually want to accrue when the time came to sit my blissful rear end in a chair at a public meeting, or plop down in front of my desk in the newsroom and avoid the rousing argument over roundabouts among my peers to tap it out afterward?
Less than two-thirds.
I promise you. It is so so much less than two-thirds.
Recently, I went through a period where life decided to just sucker punch me a good one and then continue lambasting me with untenable and unacceptable minor blows when I hit the mat. A relative, who I adore desperately, passed away unexpectedly. My job was more than three people could handle, so it was definitely more than I can handle, and I was compelled to flee.
Also unexpectedly.
I don’t do well with anything that happens unexpectedly. Even good surprises. It takes me a minute to process and then I always wind up having an emotional response to whatever 180 has popped up in my navigational app at an inappropriate time, and in an inappropriate setting.
Just before all this happened I was trying to settle into a new writing gig, for The Watershed Journal, as I got the feel for when I’d build writing time for it into my Rubik’s cube of other writing time for other writing gigs.
Already, if you’re working your way toward actually turning words into paychecks, you’re probably disgusted by me. I used to be disgusted by me too.
Well, I still am, but not when it comes to writing.
Usually.
It took me around seven years of just scribbling out anything I could on a page and shoving it in someone’s face and saying “read this, I kick ass, please read this so you can see,” before someone offered to pay me for it.
I’ve earned the joy that is unlocking the front door to a newspaper office and melting into my morning chair to figure out what the hell is even going on today that I can email to my editor by 5 p.m. Or to listen to a voicemail about how the pancake supper’s brief didn’t run and now I’ve ruined everything for the entire county by my uninhibited neglectfulness.
Oopsie doopsie.
You may be getting the sense I’m trying to imply here. It’s not always a good time being a writer. It’s a “careful what you wish for” type of situation. I mean, yes, I want to be paid to write but when I was developing this little idyllic version of my life as an undergrad I thought that meant, like, in a little cabin at the edge of some unmolested Alaska wilderness paid for by a federal grant because I have the brain of a genius and a pen of gold and the world needs my wit and insight like it needs more unmolested wilderness.
That brochure was misleading.
Someone should report the lies to someone because, aside from writing, one of the other things I was asked to do in my last journalism stint was to go talk to high school seniors about why they should be journalists.
“You shouldn’t,” I responded when the senior reporter who’d pawned the Ted Talk off on me asked what I planned to tell the little darlings. “It pays crap, public officials detest accountability so you could just get a dental degree and make a ton more money actually pulling teeth, and there is no Clark Kent. Clearly,” I finished, glazing around me at my lovely, wonderful, but not buff in even the slightest hit of a way colleagues.
“Good. Go,” he said, nodding his approval as he went back to digging through the school board agenda.
Being a paid writer is hard because even on those days – days like I just had back to back for almost two months – when you can’t physically present yourself in front of the keyboard and be expected to do anything but openly drool and weep upon it until it short circuits and you’re removed to the institution, finally, you will be expected to produce at least two or three crappy stories about boring meetings by your editor, who will likely be at least intimidating enough that you don’t want to send an email without attachments in any reality.
But the wonderful thing about paid writing work, especially that offered by a newspaper, is that after like sixteen years you get a handful of days you can choose not to show up at work and still be paid. And if you get into a funk, like I just got into with my personal writing projects, you can take it easy and get back on the straight-and-narrow after a short breather.
You’ll regret it the day you get back and your computer is smoking because the number of emails you got demanding to know where you’ve been and why you’re no longer at everyone in town’s beck and call will be overwhelming. But you can do it if need be.
Not so when you’re your own editor.
If you collect bad habits with the zeal I do, you’re likely a great writer and a terrible editor because I do not scare myself into getting two columns done a week with any efficiency whatsoever. And if you have a deadline you can’t scare yourself into meeting, you’ve got to figure something out quick:
Do you pound it out anyhow and turn it in the less-than-glorious piece you know it could be if you’d taken some time to manage your head? Or do you take the time you need and defy every “how to write books book” on the shelf at Barnes and Noble?
How do you even know if you really can’t write, or if you just violently do not want to write?
Because there is a difference. I know all the writing books, and blogs, and videos, and workshops, and “experts” will tell you that writer’s block is just an excuse and you can write your way right through it like hacking through a few brambles on an overgrown trail if you’re a real hiker.
Are you a real hiker, Sally, or are you a freaking quitter?
I just flashed on the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket and a chill just ran down my spine.
Because that’s what some of those how-to-write books come off. From the vantage point of actually being a paid writer, which is what they’re trying to turn you into, I can tell you that such advice is not great.
It’s like the tweaker outside the 7-11 telling you you should just push through your exhaustion with some of his magic crack rocks instead of that Red Bull because Red Bull is for losers, man. All the cool kids are doing it.
Look. Here’s the thing about writer’s block: Sometimes, it is just laziness, because it’s a lot of work to generate the energy it takes to get the first paragraph or two on the page. You’ve worked all day. Kids have been in your face since dawn demanding cheerios and butt wipes. You’re spent.
Like my paycheck every two weeks. Before I even get it.
Because I’m a journalist.
Le sigh.
You know yourself better than anyone. I can’t explain to you how to get comfortable interpreting your own sensory response to stress and burnout. I barely understand my own at this point. But I do know when I’m being lazy and when I truly cannot write.
When I’m going through major life transitions?
Not writing.
When I’m finding the anxiety that underscores my every waking breath more difficult to deal with than usual?
Not writing.
When I’m saying goodbye to someone I loved in this life, the knowledge of whose intangible existence states and states away, unaware of my crises and meltdowns could soothe me instantly if I could just recall her face and the way her hair smelled Sunday mornings?
For sure not writing then.
Writer’s block is real, but it’s not what the learn-to-write industry has marketed it to be.
Writer’s block goes by a bunch of seemingly dissimilar names: grief; clinical depression; burnout; hopelessness; overwhelm; parenting.
Okay, that last one isn’t actually a legitimate excuse from the work you’re yearning so hard to do. But it should be.
And if you try to write, like I did about three or four weeks into my personal dark night of the soul, you’ll be sad you did. Especially if you’re publishing it, or sending it to someone you know to be intent on publishing it. Because it won’t be good.
This is just another thing that you’re going to have to slink within yourself and consult with your guts to find out if it’s happening, but the good news is, you’ll know it’s not good before you ever hit send. Because it will not get easier after the second paragraph. It will likely get harder. And harder and harder and harder until you’re not even sure what your theme was to begin with or why you chose this particular topic to highlight as the delivery system for said theme. Your thesaurus brain will be locked up tight and you’ll struggle to string together more than one or two basic participles into a coherent sentence.
When you’re not “blocked,” the writing happens almost by muscle memory. This is the case for me, at least. When I am well, no matter how hard I need to bribe myself into the desk chair, by the time I’m three paragraphs in I’m cruising like I just left the city limits and the limit just went up to 55. I’ll know it’ll need to be edited and polished. As I’m writing it, I’ll know what’s not working and subconsciously I’ll have ideas for what it’ll need when I go back through to start editing. But, until then, I will be able to lean into the discomfort of not knowing that I can finish the piece and get it finished pretty quickly, actually.
When you can’t shut off that part of your brain that nitpicks you as you’re writing, or turn on that part of your brain that whirs to life when you see a funny interaction on the street or a perfect metaphor for an abstract concept you’ve been trying to turn into a short story, you need to look around at your own life and take stock.
Sometimes, it doesn’t need to be anything as life-shattering as a death in the family or a blow to the ego.
Equal pain, in my case. I don’t know about y’all but I’d rather have another child than be embarrassed or lose someone I love forever.
Sometimes, you’ve just been working late every night for going on two weeks and you kind of throw up in your mouth a little bit when your inner editor suggests you bang out a couple of pages on your glorious return home this particular night.
Sometimes, your mood has grown foul and fetid from a seemingly relentless string of tiny, impudent little frustrations and you’ve just reached your limit. My best advice to you, dear noobs, is to get really good at knowing when your bubble guts are the Greek fries and hummus you had for lunch of the amount of stress in your life and tailor your editorial budget accordingly.
Or you’re not going to be able to write so much as a grocery list for six weeks, and then none of your editors will remember who you are, and you’ll set yourself back by trying so hard to ignore the fact that you are human, and need breaks, instead of moving forward in your collection of personal bylines.
Take breaks when you need them. Write an extra paragraph or two when you can, so you can put something in the bank for the times when writer’s block (or life, if you like that term better because that’s what it actually is) puts you out of commission for a bit.
I didn’t do that before my most recent bout with the beast and now I’m sad about it.
Learn from me. Know thyself. Work as much as you can when the fever is high and save some of what you get done for the times when a mighty mighty chill sets in. Eventually, it will just become rhythm. And you’ll be happy again.
Official platform statement.
I thank you in advance for your vote this coming 2024.
