Treat writer’s block like Mario Hezonja treats a Giannis block attempt:
NASTY 😱 pic.twitter.com/nBmpRjhm7l
— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) December 1, 2018
Pretend it doesn’t exist. Believe it doesn’t exist. Then step right over it.
Richard K. Morgan was on The Writer Files podcast recently. I enjoyed what he had to say about when asked about writer’s block (at 30:50):
Nahhhh—there’s no such thing. There’s writer’s block in the sense that, yeah, there are days where you sit down and you just don’t feel like it. Or you can’t—you’re writing and what you’re writing is shit. But that’s not writer’s block. That’s just—you’re having a bad day.
I do think it’s—the whole concept of writer’s block is a bit self indulgent. Because you can write. Okay so you’re not writing up to the standard you’re happy with. What you’re writing, you don’t especially like. Tough. Get on. Write it. You can always go back and revise it at a later stage.
The rest of the episode is great, too. He’s grateful that he can write full-time and doesn’t like the notion that writing full-time is this incredibly difficult, painful occupation. If you have another full-time job and are working into the night to work on your novel on the side, struggling to get published, then that can be tough. But he makes it sound like a pretty sweet gig once you’ve made it. Especially when you consider all the other things in the world you could be doing for work.
If you have writer’s block, write anyway. It reminded me of how Seth Godin compares writing and speaking. You never have talker’s block:
The reason we don’t get talker’s block is that we’re in the habit of talking without a lot of concern for whether or not our inane blather will come back to haunt us. Talk is cheap. Talk is ephemeral. Talk can be easily denied.
Turn the mic on. Lower your bar. Start writing.
(Just also want to point out that Giannis did this later in the same game. He doesn’t believe in getting blocked either.)