Nikhil's Blog

Writer’s block is a myth

Writer’s block is the most impressive excuse for someone who doesn’t want to write. Everybody can write. Some tell stories. Some write essays. Some write short-form aphorisms. Some help the brands sell their products.

Writing has been the most essential tool for mankind historically speaking. Even if we remove the weight of history from writing, it still is one of the most important tools of the modern day and it will continue to remain so.

I am not getting into the benefits of writing. We all know that. Anybody who has journaled their thoughts in a diary knows its effect. Writing helps you come out of your internal quagmire by forcing you to slow down your thinking.

As human beings, we love excuses. There is an entire industry created around productivity because we as human beings cannot get our work done with efficiency. Writer’s block is just another excuse out of the many we give ourselves.

What is writer’s block?

Simply put, it’s the inability to write further than you have. Your mind goes into limbo, unable to form the sequence of sentences. Your mind is clogged and you become confused. It happens when you are too bogged down by the weight of your material or you have so much to process in your head you become lost.

That’s why they say take a long walk. When you are alone walking with yourself, your mind is in a relaxed state concerning the environment. Your mind then shows you only the things that are dear to you or ones you think are important. The unimportant aspects of your writing material take a backseat. In that aspect, our mind is a brilliant machine, no amount of AI can replace that.

What if I tell you that taking a long walk is not a luxury? What if there’s a deadline?

In my opinion, writer’s block occurs when your mind is clouded. It could be because you don’t know what to write or how to approach a difficult subject with simplicity. As a creative writer, you are stuck in a situation from where you don’t know how to write the next chapter.

I have written two books including ten short stories. I am working on my third novel and have the plot ready for two more short stories. When I was writing these stories I had been in this rut for a long time. I would write ten to twelve chapters of my book before writer’s block would hit me out of the blue. I had no idea what to do next or whether I had a decent novel in me. How to write the next scene? What do I do here? How writers are managing to finish the book?

The answer, that I discovered on my own, lies in the simple word — outline. You need to know what you want to write and why are you writing. If it’s a long essay like this one, you need to know what are you going to address. Sometimes the essay is a rambling of the mind like my previous ones were. Sometimes the essay or a write-up will contain advice and personal experiences like this one.

So, open your notes app (yes a notes app is sufficient for anything except a novel) or your notebook and jot down the ideas you want to write about. Each idea is a headline. Write down the things you want to cover about the topic in bullet points.

If I am writing an essay about writer’s block, here’s what I would do –

These are the sub-headings of the essay I am writing. At this stage, you don’t have to be eloquent. Just jot down your points. If you can do that with a pen and paper, that’s even better.

When you are done jotting down your points, see if you can add more to it or if you need to restructure it. Structuring your essay is an absolute necessity. Your reader needs to be aware of the various stages of the essay. You don’t need to fool the reader into reading your work, you need to inspire the reader into reading your work. One of the ways to do that is by maintaining a flow in the writing. It should appear logical and natural.

You can add more words to your bullet points or sub-headings keeping in mind that you are going to expand this into a full essay later. When you are done with the bullet points, ask yourself — if I want to write about this a week later do I have enough? Have I added enough? If not then keep adding on the go.

You can do this exercise even when you are on a flight and don’t have the energy to form words and structures.

If you are a creative writer then you need more than this simple outline but worry not this is the path through which we can write small essays to huge novels.