Uncertain times. Anxious times. Times to write: Tips for Getting Beyond Writer’s Block

We are in the middle of a world-wide crisis as humans face the threat of COVID-19. Is this the right time to write? I answer this question for myself by thinking about two audiences.

• The people whose anxiety and uncertainty might be eased by what I have to say. I have had the great privilege of studying human well-being with masters in the field, people who taught the evidence-supported benefits of positive emotions, good relationships, and finding meaning. They have also studied resilience practices and numerous positive interventions. Psychologist Albert Bandura commented that psychologists are terrible at social diffusion of the things they learn. Perhaps people like me can be part of getting the ideas out to people who can benefit from them.

• Our children, grandchildren, and others in the future who may wonder, “What was it like in the middle of a global pandemic? What did you do? What worked? How did you feel? What helped you get through it?” I personally value my grandfather’s letters home about his experiences on the Western Front in WW I, and I wish I had asked more questions about how my parents and grand-parents experienced the Great Depression and WWII. What motivated people to start Victory Gardens? All of those memories are gone if they are not shared.

So, let’s say we want to write, but somehow it just isn’t happening. From my experience as a writing coach, here are six problems that I’ve seen face people. For each, I describe briefly one or two experiments that may help us liberate our voices.

Problem 1: I don’t have time to write at all!

Some of us are at home now with a kitchen table lined with restless children that we need to home school. Others may have infants with little interest in sleep, and physical distancing keeps babysitters away. Others are learning how to work from home using new tools and practices. When can we possibly focus enough to write?

Perhaps this is time to collect story seeds and let the writing happen later. Today even the most mundane activities have become challenging. How do we solve them? What are we learning by watching others solve them? What do we see that might help us grow from this experience? What does flourishing look like in crisis time? Try making quick notes in a notebook or Evernotes or even sketching ideas out loud in a voice recording. It’s only necessary to capture enough to bring the memory back to mind when writing time returns. Making the note or sketching the idea out loud not only provides a later reminder, but it also strengthens the formation of the memory. It is best to capture them as they happen because memories fade quickly, particularly under stress.

Problem 2: I used to need a couple of hours of uninterrupted time to get my writing done, but that never happens anymore.

Two things can help with this:

Start a list of pieces of writing that can be tackled in a short time. One friend divides his writing into concept descriptions, stories, and activities. When he has 30 minutes to write, he picks something from one of these lists and writes it up. Sometimes he feels like writing out a story, sometimes explaining a big idea. It’s not the time to worry about context or transitions. Those can happen later when a miraculous empty time reappears and he can start to put the pieces together.

Finish every writing session by planning what to write next time. Your mind is already focused on your writing, so figuring out the next thing to tackle will take far less time now than trying to decide when your mind comes to the writing cold. Don’t put your pen down until you have your next idea.

Problem 3: I’m deleting my words faster than I’m writing them.

That’s one of the downsides of computer-based editing. It’s just too easy to delete something when we look at it and it feels dumb at first.

Turn your inner editor off! Trying to write and edit at the same time is like driving with one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brake. The car doesn’t go very fast, and it uses a lot of energy. Give yourself permission to write dumb first drafts, with the awareness that they can be revised later.

In fact, I’d recommend revising in waves. The first wave is about getting the big picture right. Does the whole thing make sense? Do people know quickly what the piece is about? The second wave is about getting the structure right. I think of this as paragraph-level sculpting; the words on the page feel like flexible clay changing shape to pressure from my fingers. The third wave is about wording, sentence structure, and punctuation. This is usually when I give my piece a dash-and-exclamation-point-ectomy.

Problem 4: My mind just goes blank when I think about writing.

Here’s a brainstorming technique that some people find helps them get out of a writing lull: Find a quiet place to sit. Gather yellow stickies and a sharpie. Set a timer for 10 minutes. Sit. Don’t try to think about writing. It’s time to let ideas well up in the unconscious. You aren’t in charge of what’s happening there, so just breathe deeply and keep the conscious mind from fastening long on anything in particular. When the timer goes off, write ideas on stickies as fast as you can, one idea per stickie, a word or two per idea. When ideas run dry, put all the yellow stickies on a white board or wall and play with them to see possible shapes.

I also think about my writing when I’m doing household chores such as washing dishes and weeding. I just let ideas float around in my mind, and often a new approach to a topic emerges.

Problem 5: Who cares what I have to say?

It’s very easy to get paralyzed by the thought that somebody else has already said it better, and besides, who am I? It can be helpful to think that there are all sorts of people out there with different ways of learning and thinking. That makes many different audiences that respond differently to different voices. Your voice, your experience, your way of organizing information may be just what some people out there need to make sense of the world. Nobody else has lived just the way you have.

I have seen people benefit from imagining the people they want to reach in great detail, almost creating a cast of characters that would attend the first reading of their book or article. Age range? Genders? Education levels? Particular life circumstances? What kinds of boots do they wear?

Once you can imagine your audience, how do you want them to be changed by reading your work? Picturing your audience and imagining how you want to affect them can help you give yourself permission to speak up.

Problem 6: Writing is so lonely!

It is strange that an activity that is so social in purpose tends to be so solitary in execution. But there are ways to make it more social.

Find partners, writing buddies, or writing workshops where you can share your writing with others in exchange for paying attention to theirs. I’ve been running writers’ workshops since 2013, and I have found a simple workshop structure that works. In particular, make sure that everybody looks for strengths as well as things that could make the piece even stronger. For details on this approach, see The 1-2-3 Method of Giving Feedback. (For the web version, use one of the other of these links:

• Positive Psychology News - The 1-2-3 Method of Giving Feedback

• LinkedIn - The 1-2-3 Method of Giving Feedback

If you want to write during this perilous time but you’re feeling stuck, pick one of these experiments to try. If that one works, pick another to add to it. If it doesn’t, try a different one. May you find at least one that unleashes your wisdom so that the rest of us can benefit.