Writer's Block

"Preston L. Allen, I loved your book, All or Nothing, I have been a fan of yours since I read Hoochie Mama. I have been thinking about writing a book on a similar subject, horse racing which I know alot about, but every time I sit down to write, the ideas just don't come. You have written several books, do you ever have writer's block? What do you do for writer's block. A reader."

Dear Reader, it is new Years Eve and this is my last post for the year. I am going to cheat. A response I wrote to this same question has been circulating the internet for a few years now, so I will just cut and paste it here as my answer so that I can go and celebrate the holiday.

Writer's Block?

The question of writer's block comes up every time I teach a creative writing class, so I'm going to answer it for once and for all.

If you ever get writer's block, do what I do.

Go swing a golf club. Or go watch a movie. Or read a book. Or talk with a friend. Do something. Eat a pizza.

Do anything.

Just don't worry about writer's block. It goes away eventually, especially since it does not exist in the first place.

Here's the deal. If I commissioned you to write a play about a group of friends united by their love of fried conch, you'd go out and do it because, one, it's a job, and, two, you can write. Piece of cake. Your biggest problem would be doing the research on conch, but the actual writing would be a cinch.

On the other hand, if I commissioned you to go sit down and write a great play and I gave you no further directions, you'd sit on your butt and ponder suicide.

That sitting on your butt and pondering self immolation is what the layman calls writer's block. What do I write? What the heck do I write? My god, I have nothing to write about. My god, nothing is coming out of me. I'm blocked.

No you're not blocked. Are you deaf? Can you not hear what your inner writer is really saying? I HAVE nothing to write about.

Again, there is no such thing as writer's block, but there is such a thing as no assignment.

Writing is a job. Sometimes you have a boss. Sometimes you're self-employed. Either way, you've got lots of work to do.

The writer with the boss (journalist, script doctor, ad person, jinglist, jingoist) never has writer's block. Heck, the writer with the boss has too much writing to do.

The self-employed writer, on the other hand, is her own boss, and now I think you see the problem. The self-employed writer has to do TWO jobs: write AND come up with the assignments. When she can't find an assignment, she says she has writer's block. The big lie. That's like a teacher saying he has teacher's block because it's summer and he can't find any kids to teach.

Follow the pen, my brothers and sisters. Follow the pen. What the self-employed writer has to do, when he can't find an assignment is pick up the pen and write. Just write. It's your job, buddy. So write. Write anything. "I can't find anything to write about. There is absolutely nothing to write about. The only interesting thing is that story about the dog and the necktie I was putting off to work on over the summer. Actually, that story is pretty good. It kind of reminds me of the way I used to write when . . . ."

And voila! Writer's block is gone, because it never existed.

The other thing you have to remember is that as a self-employed writer, you are not restricted to writing plays--you can write anything. So start following the pen, and maybe it will become an essay, a poem, a page in the journal, some crappy ten pages of ramblings about a mutt and a necktie, a play, a great play, whatever. It doesn't matter because you are your own boss, and thus, the only standard you set for yourself is that you find TRUTH in everything you write.

So . . . if you want to write more and feel less of that thing called writer's block that we both agree does not exist, then you must go out and get yourself a job as a writer (see list above in paragraph 7).

Or give yourself more structure as a self-employed writer. "I am going to write two pages of dialogue in my new play every day for a month. Then I am going to write a page of synopsis of a future project every night." Then follow your rules. This rigor will work to trick the mind into thinking that you are answering to some boss who requires two pages of this or that each day or she will withhold your paycheck.

There are other techniques like that, which you can find in every beginning creative writing textbook.

But, come on, it's all smoke and mirrors, really.

You don't need that stuff. Structure. Groannn. Yuck.

That's why you're self-employed in the first place! You hate structure. You want the freedom of writing only when it is fresh and original and novel . . . I think the word I'm searching for here is "inspired." You want the freedom to write only when you're inspired. INSPIRATION is your boss. INSPIRATION tells you what assignments to work on.

But sometimes when you sit around waiting for inspiration, you kinda feel like nothing will ever come. You kinda feel like you have writer's block. Here we go again.

Your problem is you want to have your cake and eat it, too.

You want brilliant inspiration to flow from your pen, but you're too lazy to treat writing like a job and do it every day so that you get better at it and better at it until every time you pick up your pen the muses obey YOUR commands.

You want to spend months away from writing while you PLAY AT being a writer, in your smoking jacket, at those chic gatherings, where all the cool writers who, like you, have mastered the "writer's look" hang out--and then, finally, when all the parties have ended, you, with your writing muscles flabby from disuse, expect to just sit down and demand brilliance to flow. Then when, surprise, surprise, it does not come, you claim writer's block.

That's not the way it's done, my brothers and sisters. If you want to be a writer, you'd better pick up that pen.

Every day.

And enjoy the pizza.

Thanks,

Preston L. Allen

Happy New Year!