Recently in this space I recounted my curious imperviousness to writer's block. Because there are some writers among my readers here, I received requests for my specific techniques to combat this dreaded writerly ailment. And so in response I have composed this following list of
Ten Ways to Overcome Writer's Block
1. Just start randomly writing. Something will come out. It worked for me just now!
2. Make promises you think you can't keep. Using me as an example again, I promised ten ideas, but at the time I only had zero ideas. Zero ideas! Now I have done two ideas already. Much like my childhood dog Cashew, promises abhor a vacuum.
3. Just admit any writing by anyone is not going to be very good. It hardly ever is. The whole writing endeavor is all pointless really. But what else are you going to do instead, read blog lists?
4. Hey, c'mon, chin up. Whatever you write is gonna be brilliant. Don't listen to the sour advice of writer's blogs. You contain multitudes!
5. Don't worry about subject. Just write whatever is in your heart and make it beautiful and profound and interesting and compelling while being deeply sophisticated and yet accessible to a wide audience. Also it should have an incredible title and should be funny and wise and amazingly lovely, but with a great rhythm and "page turner" kind of quality. No pressure.
6. No. Scratch that, scratch number five. If you're stuck just start writing about something that happened to you. It can be the most incidental thing. For instance I couldn't think of an example of an incidental thing that happened to me so I used the example of an incidental thing that happened to me.
You just read it.
7. Wow. Are we at seven already?
8. Don't be afraid to stall for time by "writing in place". That means just write stuff you know you're going to delete anyway. Then,
9. Pull a switcheroo! Keep all the stuff you were going to delete anyway. I got number eight out of this method. Actually I also got number seven too! You may just delete yours, but you could get a whole bestselling novel. Who knows?
10. Alas, I already used up my joke where, in a confident piece about writer's block, I end up frozen, with nothing to say. But oddly there is some small wisdom hidden in there:
Sometimes saying nothing is the most eloquent thing to say.
11. But usually saying something is better.
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