Writer’s block isn’t a thing.
It’s about as real a concept as squidgy little elf-eared beasts scurdling around under your bed at night while you sleep.
Writer’s block is a non-medical term that was coined in 1947 by Austrian psychiatrist Edmund Bergler as a way of excusing your own procrastination based on insecurity, doubt, and the inability to acknowledge that you don’t believe you’re good enough to set words on paper in an order that will garner fame, love, and attention. It’s the result of narcissistic ego, not reality.
The writer archetype has a reputation for being depressed introverts; weak in will and believing they lack power over their lives and craft (Hemingway, Woolf, Poe and Plath to name a few). In fact, this reputation of suffering has been romanticized to make even more meaning out of a writer’s work.
The notion that writers are plagued with a special gift set apart from mere mortals, and with that a great burden of anguish that no one else could possibly understand. This crap has been perpetuated for centuries.
But the truth is much simpler and far less glamorous– writers get off on the idea of calling themselves a writer more than they do actually writing.
There are writers who viciously protect the concept of writer’s block because it’s become their identity as a writer. To hold onto it means they don’t have to perform. They can ride the coattails of a great dream, bragging about being a writer without getting dirty actually writing.
It’s the self-inflicted wound that keeps on giving. They can anguish over it to fan the flames of their own self-aggrandizing martyrdom. Sulk around the corners of their home in their bathrobes plagued by an imaginary illness.
Many writers have accepted this defeatist attitude and that’s why most stay poor. They’d rather stay in their heads where they are always the hero in their story instead of immortalizing themselves on paper. After all, the expectation to be genuine and authentic is intimidating and often burdensome.
We know this to be true because you and I have been this martyr. We’ve indulged in our own vanity of self. We’ve trickled down the wall of uncertainty and imposter syndrome more than a few times only to find zero answers and more greasy insecurity waiting for us.
But this is all unnecessary because “writer’s block” isn’t real. It’s an engineered excuse to combat imposter syndrome.
The reality is that the brain never stops thinking. It never stops processing. It is a super computer that will answer any question you have for it.
The problem?
You haven’t asked any good questions lately.
Well, that’s part of the problem. The other issue is that you don’t know any better. You don’t know that you need to ask questions in order to get the answers you want. Even deeper than that? You have to ask the RIGHT questions if you want to get the answers you’re looking for (that’s no different whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction).
Questions are the brain’s caviar.
And systems and processes are the $49 hoity-toity crackers. They’re the delivery method that deconstructs the “writer’s block” mentality and gets you actually writing again.
Having systems and processes eliminates self-hatred and the obsessive compulsive need to believe you’re not good enough. Even pantsers need processes to be able to freely write what comes to mind.
What do I mean about systems and processes? You need a steel reinforced structure upon which to build your Empire State Building. It’s the infrastructure that keeps it standing, not the drywall.
So what does that look like?
When it comes to writing, the steel beams are made out of questions– the right kind of questions that cause the brain to release the answers you need to further your prose. Ask the wrong questions and you’re stuck with answers you can’t use.
But ask the right questions?
You’ll never be at a loss for what to say next. And that’s a writer’s core existence. To be able to know what to say next.
Systems and processes are important.
Because here’s the thing– no one remembers the words you never publish.