Writer’s block and how to solve it

There’s been lots of chat online recently about overcoming writer’s block. Writer’s block is defined by some site Google thinks knows, as the condition of being unable to think of what to write or how to proceed with writing. And that’s a load of old toe. I can state with complete confidence that never in a career spanning 40+ years have I suffered from this terrible condition. And the reason for this is simple: I can’t afford it, not just because without the article there can be no invoice. I can’t afford it, because without getting on and writing something, my head implodes.

It’s not just me. Writer’s block is a problem no jobbing writer, say a journalist or a copy writer can allow. Hilary Mantel was asked at some event if she ever go it and how she resolved it. I can’t remember the exact words but in essence she said no, and that writing is something that cannot be blocked. You sit down and write something, anything and see what happens. Try it, try writing out your nine times tables in numbers and words and see where it takes you. If it only takes you to the ten times table, go backwards. See what clever things you notice about the nine times table.

A way more serious problem is a lack of ideas to turn into stories and here too Hilary had a solution: read a newspaper. You’ll find a host of stories presents itself, especially if you’re looking at smaller local titles. The point is that ideas spring from your observations of what is all around you. Wherever you can find scenes or communications about life and people, you can have something to say: the discovery of a long lost relative; a pony who can speak English with a Welsh accent; vegetables that double in size in the fridge overnight; a mysterious visitor you thought was just the new postman and who turns out to be your first lover in disguise. And so it goes on.

Writer’s block is not a problem, it’s an excuse, an indulgence that puts the complainant first and centre, and overlooks the writing. More interesting is why someone thinks they cannot write, have no ideas, no stories to tell. It might be reasonable to say that individual trauma justifies shelving the pencil or pen or keyboard for a while. If you’re distracted by some family worry, your spreading midriff or how to pay the electricity bill, writing is not going to be top of the list of what to do with your time. In the case of the electricity bill, there’s motivation right there to get on with it. In the case of other dramas though, perhaps a writer is so sensitive that any kind of practical or emotional disruption is sufficient to knock them off course.

For me, it’s the opposite. The worse things are the more buried I get. The hardest part about writing a weekly blog isn’t overcoming a fictitious block or coming up with ideas. The hardest part is the same as it has always been, it’s that contact problem. Not people or networking mind, it’s just getting the backside into contact with the chair and the fingers with the keyboard. It’s the old problem of finding a round tuit. I have to get one every week to make sure the noise in my head reaches the page. I suffer not at all from writer’s block, but massively from the maelstrom that’s constantly raging in my head. Perhaps now its a little queter, but I know the noise will be back soon. Like writer’s block it’s all in the mind.