How to Effectively Combat Writer’s Block and Fear of the Blank Page

This article was originally published on The Writing Cooperative in December 2017.

Hemingway Was onto Something.

When writer’s block hits you, it hits you hard. For some, it happens often, for others rarely. But the impact is hard no matter the frequency. Staring at a blank page for hours on end, or looking into the computer screen hoping for inspiration to strike.

The only solution to combat writer’s block is hard work. There is no secret magic place where all the inspiration is waiting for someone to bring it to light. But, for a writer struggling with writer’s block, it seldom helps to hear advice like “You overcome writer’s block by writing.”

There?are two techniques that together can help you ward off writer’s block and never fear a blank page again. Enter Ernest Hemingway and Steven Johnson. Good old Papa and one of the best non-fiction science writers of our generation.

Stop While the Going Is Good

Writing requires mental energy. When you sit down to write your creative energy is most likely not flowing. It’s the same as running or any other physical activity — you have to warm up.

There is some truth to the old saying of always stopping while the going is good. Ernest Hemingway was famous for perfecting this technique to fight writer’s block. And his method is almost laughably simple.

“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day… you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day.?That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it, you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.” — Ernest Hemingway

When Hemingway had been writing for a couple of hours and still had energy left, he stopped. Even though he knew what to write next, he stopped. The next time he would sit down to write, he would re-read the sentence and finish it. And then he was already writing.?No waiting for inspiration to strike. No nothing. Just complete the work already in front of you and off you go.

Stacking Projects and Having a Spark File

The technique Hemingway used to get the creative juices flowing is superb to?continue?working on something you are writing. But what about the blank page, when you have nothing to write on? Because stopping mid-sentence and using this as a starting point is fine when you have something to continue on.

When you find it hard to write in the morning or when you come home in the evening after a long workday at your day job, the energy needed to write might not be there at all.

One technique that has helped me a lot is to?stack?projects. The idea is that writing something — anything — will get your creative mind going, and before you know it you are oscillating between projects and are writing on all of them.

The writing can be everything from a new blog post, an article or chapters in a book or transcribing audio notes. When you have more projects going — with one main one and several simmering on the side — you can always switch between them when you get stuck in one.

You will always have something to write somewhere by doing this and is not bound to keep on hitting your head against a problematic passage in one project but are free to switch around between them.

Science writer?Steven Johnson calls this keeping a “Spark File”. This is where you store all your research and small tidbits of writings. Things — which is not necessarily about the project you are working on — or small sentences you like the sound of, but which is not fitting for the piece you are writing.

“[..] a single document where I keep all my hunches: ideas for articles, speeches, software features, startups, ways of framing a chapter I know I’m going to write, even whole books. [..] There’s no organizing principle to it, no taxonomy — just a chronological list of semi-random ideas that I’ve managed to capture before I forgot them. I call it the spark file. “ —?Steven Johnson

How many projects should you be working on? Well, it?depends. A crappy answer, I know, but I can’t say “only 5 projects” because it — yes — depends on what type of projects you are working on. If it is blog posts, short fiction or longer non-fiction books.

“[..] every three or four months, I go back and re-read the entire spark file. [..] when I re-read the document that I end up seeing new connections that hadn’t occurred to me the first (or fifth) time around: the idea I had in 2008 that made almost no sense in 2008, but that turns out to be incredibly useful in 2012, because something has changed in the external world, or because some other idea has supplied the missing piece that turns the hunch into something actionable.” —?Steven Johnson

Keep It Simple

These two methods, Hemingway’s practice of stopping mid-thought to always have something to continue on the next time you sit down to write, and stacking multiple projects to work on, are two helpful ways of ensuring you never get into situations where you have nothing to write.

You will never paint yourself into a corner where the only way forward is to keep writing on the project that has become unwritable. There is always at least a half-finished sentence or a stack of other projects you can flex your creative muscles over. It’s much easier to get to the flow state when starting is not the hardest part.

It is useful because it is simple. There are thousands, if not millions, of complicated methods of fighting off writer’s block and becoming super productive. But I have always found that the most straightforward ways are by far the most effective ones. KISS! Keep It Simple, Stupid! You always have something to write on, and writer’s block will be a thing of the past.

Best of luck on your writing journey.