Lucy Carter
4/22/22---Today, I suffered from a temporary but enlightening writer's block. This happened while I was writing an essay for my fourth book, "For the Intellect." I have always suffered from writer's blocks, and in "For the Intellect," I even wrote about why writers, among all other professions, suffer from a blockage, but I never knew how to deal with MY writer's block. I always had this question pending on my author's dashboard, but I never knew how to answer it until today.
"For the Intellect," by the way, is a series of essays that contain my own insights and analysis on things such as STEM, writing, history, philosophy, and even movies and songs. I was trying to write a new essay today, but I had a writer's block. One usual cause of writer's block is a deficiency in ideas, and this is a valid and understandable cause that has happened to me, but this has not been the main cause of most of the writer's blocks I have had throughout my history of writing. I, in fact, had many ideas for today's essay: I wanted to write about my thoughts on the 1968 "Planet of the Apes" movie, the prevalent teen girl tropes in film and media, the way "Shrek" would make a good social commentary, and, at the back of my mind, I even thought about writing about the "yogurt" in yogurt covered raisins. I should not have had a writer's block. However, that was not my reality. I stared at a blank screen for 20+ minutes without writing, no joke. Why? I thought that I would hit a dead end or write useless crap if I started pursuing one of those topics. For reasons that are not pertinent to this answer, I was underconfident about writing down the ideas I had, and I thought that I would either write something that was not eloquent or intellectual enough, or I would not have enough topics to discuss my subject and hence the essay would be insufficient. That was why I sat staring at my screen, trying to think of a different idea to write about. However, eventually, I wisely chose to use one of my preexisting ideas: the Planet of the Apes review. It actually worked out quite well, and I realized that I wasted so much time sitting there when I could have been writing, maybe even finishing two instead of one essay today!
With that being said, I would say that to deal with writer's block, I'll just do the opposite of having a writer's block: WRITING. I have so many ideas that zombies will want to eat my brain, so I might as well stop being so underconfident and just write. I could easily just edit my book after I am done writing. (I finished writing my third book, "The Reformation," a while ago, and my dad is currently reading through it to make any suggestions. Before I gave it to my dad, I had to reread all 390+ pages 3-6 times because of the mistakes I made.) There is always going to be a period in your time to look over your book again, so just write!
"For the Intellect," by the way, is a series of essays that contain my own insights and analysis on things such as STEM, writing, history, philosophy, and even movies and songs. I was trying to write a new essay today, but I had a writer's block. One usual cause of writer's block is a deficiency in ideas, and this is a valid and understandable cause that has happened to me, but this has not been the main cause of most of the writer's blocks I have had throughout my history of writing. I, in fact, had many ideas for today's essay: I wanted to write about my thoughts on the 1968 "Planet of the Apes" movie, the prevalent teen girl tropes in film and media, the way "Shrek" would make a good social commentary, and, at the back of my mind, I even thought about writing about the "yogurt" in yogurt covered raisins. I should not have had a writer's block. However, that was not my reality. I stared at a blank screen for 20+ minutes without writing, no joke. Why? I thought that I would hit a dead end or write useless crap if I started pursuing one of those topics. For reasons that are not pertinent to this answer, I was underconfident about writing down the ideas I had, and I thought that I would either write something that was not eloquent or intellectual enough, or I would not have enough topics to discuss my subject and hence the essay would be insufficient. That was why I sat staring at my screen, trying to think of a different idea to write about. However, eventually, I wisely chose to use one of my preexisting ideas: the Planet of the Apes review. It actually worked out quite well, and I realized that I wasted so much time sitting there when I could have been writing, maybe even finishing two instead of one essay today!
With that being said, I would say that to deal with writer's block, I'll just do the opposite of having a writer's block: WRITING. I have so many ideas that zombies will want to eat my brain, so I might as well stop being so underconfident and just write. I could easily just edit my book after I am done writing. (I finished writing my third book, "The Reformation," a while ago, and my dad is currently reading through it to make any suggestions. Before I gave it to my dad, I had to reread all 390+ pages 3-6 times because of the mistakes I made.) There is always going to be a period in your time to look over your book again, so just write!
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