How I Overcome Writer’s Block Every Time

At a friend's birthday party last year, I met a professor that taught creativity at Parque Lage in Rio de Janeiro. I told him that I was a writer and how I sometimes struggled with writer’s block.

The advice he gave me was so simple, yet it stuck with me. It helps me get my writing done even when I feel I don’t have a single original idea in my mind.

His advice was to just keep writing. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s terrible. Just get something down and come back to it the next day. At least then you’ll have something to work with and can start building from there. 

It seems so easy that it’s almost anticlimactic. Yet I’ve done this ever since, and it works every time. When I hit a creative wall, I just write whatever comes to mind relating to the topic I'm working on. I don’t think about structure, a killer introduction, or a satisfying finish. The aim is to simply get words down.

The result is usually a first draft that makes my toes curl in shame when I read it. Yet it’s something. The next day, I move bits around and create a flow that begins to make sense. This prompts me to think clearer about whatever it is I’m writing and I can start editing and adding bits in. Without this first draft - no matter how awful it is - my next day would start by staring at a blank page. And there’s nothing that feeds writer’s block more than a non-existent draft.

This bit of advice had such a huge impact on the way I write. I hope it can provide some help to other writers or creatives too.