How to Pulverize “Writer’s Block”?

Categorized | Gary Karbon, writing

How to Pulverize “Writer’s Block”?

Posted on 21 April 2008 by Gary Karbon

I heard people say I'm “lucky” because (knock on wood) I almost never had a “writer's block” throughout my career as a professional writer.

But it's not luck really. The truth is much more simple and obvious: I write only what I feel strongly about.

Sometimes I puzzle people with 800 words about a movie shot back in 1956 or 1934. Why? Because I happen to love that film with a passion, regardless of when it was shot.

If, by contrast, I try to write about anything that does not really move me, then I'm “blocked” too because then I'd be just pretending. And when I pretend, I can't write.

I usually write easy because I choose topics that carry me a hundred miles a minute.

Sometimes it's politics. Sometimes it's a building. And many times it's a work of art or a thing of beauty.

But I start with emotions, always. And then shape it up with what I know.

At one point I of course re-write and edit. But reason and analysis usually come afterwards.

When you write from that deep core of adrenaline, enthusiasm, or “shakti,” you are never tongue tied. You never have a “writer's block.” The spirit in the air just takes over.

My opinion is, people have a “block” only when they try to write about things that really don't move them at all.

Some writers try to be respectable above anything else. Or they perhaps just try to make a few bucks to pay the bills. I understand that because I've been there. Quite a few times.

But when that's the case, there's no adoration, no infatuation, no bells ringing. The words just don't float to the surface like lilies.

If you dip your keyboard into that pool of passion within, then not writing, but STOPPING is usually the problem.

Here is the proof.

Imagine something that you HATE with a passion.

Start by filling up the blanks: “I hate … because …”

See how quickly you wrote that sentence? You already have a sentence in the bag! Just like that.

Then you may want to give a whole LIST of reasons why you hate X.

Next, you may dial up the things that you never forgot: “I never forgot the day when…”

The house burned down? Papa left you? Won the lottery? The first time you made love? Found that puppy by the side of the road on a rainy day? Received that letter announcing… (fill the blank)? Ran into your lost … (fill the blank) while waiting at the airport?

Right there it's another quick and easy list.

You can try the same with the things that you love; drive you crazy; disappoint you; things that you are jealous of; things that you dream about day and night; or the people that broke your heart…

Make a list, cry your brains out, and suddenly you have sentences piling up out of nowhere. Feels like Heaven.

Granted, not all that writing will get you a Pulitzer or Nobel prize.

But my whole point is, when you (to use a wonderful metaphor that belongs to writing guru Natalie Goldberg) “open a vein” and then start to write, words and sentences flow like liquid lightning. All of a sudden you are flying in orbit without leaving your chair.

Start with your own emotional truth and the rest will follow (actually, chase you) like prairie fire.

Recommended reading: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Share and Enjoy:

1 Comments For This Post

foo Says:
May 31st, 2008 at 6:10 pm
You know, I’ve gone round and round with writer acquaintances about this.

I think that you’re correct insofar as it’s easy to write what you’re passionate about. But I think writers’ block is really just laziness, and is a result of people coddling themselves with happy fuzzy ideas like “I need to feel the muse in order to write.”

Do bus drivers have a muse? What about plumbers? What if you called a plumber and he said “Sorry, I have plumbers’ block?”

Writers’ block is bullshit. It’s a myth, and shouldn’t be propagated. If you’re a writer, you get up in the morning, make coffee and start writing. Same as anyone else. The “sensitive artiste” narrative is damaging and is the enemy of art. Art is work.