The Secret to Breaking Through Writer's Block
Think about writer’s block for a moment. It’s frozen creativity. A river that has been stopped up. Writer’s block is that uncomfortable tightness around your throat. Like a low-grade headache, it’s an uncomfortable pressure that never seems to go away. It feels like we have no control over it, but we do.
The key to understanding writer’s block is this: like a strait jacket, the more you struggle against it, the worse it gets. If you sit at your desk and think, “Okay. I’m going to get creative here. I’ve got to break through this”, your mind seizes up, goes blank, wanders off to the mall, refuses to answer your phone calls.
So here’s the secret. Get into the creative flow in some other area of your life. Do something else that inspires you. Your writing will soon begin to flow too.
What are some creative flow activities? Here are my latest:
Knitting. With a repetitive, meditative handiwork, my mind wanders into a glorious daydream. Very often when I knit, I feel like a kid again, imagining things. I have no objectives, no plan, no strategy. I simply let go, and my mind steps into the field of deep imagination. It’s amazing.
Exercise. Moving my body is the quickest and easiest way to release stress and open myself to new possiblity. I run in a gym, I walk outside, I stretch at night while watching television. But however I choose to exercise, I feel that when I get my body moving in a new way, my mind opens in a new way.
