Ask the Author: Writer’s Block
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“Being a writer, you have surely stumbled across a writer’s block. How did you overcome that?”
The garden variety of writer’s block is what I call the Blank Page Syndrome: a persistent kind of fear of failure that gets in the way of writing. I don’t always manage to beat it every day, but when I do, it’s a matter of “close your eyes and jump”.
Real writer’s block is uglier. Some people claim it doesn’t exist, because “plumbers don’t get plumber’s block either”. True, but plumbers don’t rely on a volatile chemical-electrical tool that can short out on you, without a warning and for an undetermined time. Writers do.
I had this happen once, courtesy of pregnancy hormones. Not a single daydream or idea showed itself, never mind anything worth writing down. The part of my brain that was responsible for imagination was out of service.
Dead as a doornail. For months on end.
As for overcoming it? It just went away, as fast as it had struck. Nothing I did, I’m afraid. Maybe it would have gone sooner if I hadn’t stressed so much about whether it would ever go away, but other than that, I was just happy to continue writing again.
And happy that it never happened in the 10 years since. Just the BPS to tackle now.
Thanks for asking!
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