(9-13-08) Writer's Block -- Treat the Disease Not the Symptom

I’ve decided to discuss a subject near (but very, very far from dear) to my heart. Partly to get some things off of my chest, partly because I hope it may be of use to someone.




Maybe it’s happened to you: you intend to write, you desperately want to write, you may even have a scene already outlined in your head, but you sit down at the computer, hands at the keyboard, and no words come out of your brain. Or words come, but they’re not the right ones -- they’re banal, flaccid, lifeless -- and very soon your mind tells you, “Stop. No more. This is torture and it’s getting me nowhere.” A few sessions like this, and you stop even trying. This dismal state of affairs may last for a few days, a few weeks, or a few months; for some writers it’s been known to last years.

In the meantime, you meet people who blithely declare that they’ve never had Writer’s Block; or people who say that they don’t believe in Writer’s Block (which as far as I’m concerned is like saying you don’t believe in stomach aches); or people who say they have an infallible cure for Writer’s Block. The cure is usually something along the lines of, “Sit at the computer writing nonsense, just any silly thing that comes to your mind, and suddenly you’ll find that you’re writing deathless prose.”

But maybe you’ve tried all of these so-called cures, and none of them worked. Or one of them did work, once, when you had a tiny block that had only lasted for two hours or two days, but it’s proved useless against the big block that’s tormenting you now. You talk to other writers, but they either dismiss what you’re going through because they’ve never experienced it, or they commiserate as fellow sufferers but have no advice to give except: “Usually, it goes away eventually.”

And yes, usually it does go away ... eventually. But eventually can take a long time.

You will have gathered by now that I’ve been a sufferer myself. Over the decades I’ve been blocked for days, months, and yes, I’ve been one of those unfortunates for whom it has lasted for years. Nevertheless, I’ve managed to write and publish eleven novels and a number of short stories, so it’s not like a pose I assume to cover up the fact that I’m not really serious about my writing. Along the way, I’ve discovered and discarded several supposed cures. Finally I realized: Whatever I happened to be doing at the time the block went away, I convinced myself that was what had cured me, and that the same cure would work again. Somehow, it never did.

But eventually I had a genuine insight: you can’t cure Writer’s Block by addressing it directly, because it’s not a “disease,” it’s only a symptom -- and just like a cough or a sore throat, it’s not always a symptom of the same condition. The challenge is to find out what the underlying condition is and to cure that, but this can be very difficult.

Still, I have some suggestions to make.

First of all, there seem to be three kinds of Writer’s Block:

The Pseudo Block -- This is the one that only lasts for hours, or a couple of days at most. You’re making too much of it by calling it Writer’s Block. You’re tired or you’re distracted by something else. It happens. But by treating this fleeting inability to write like it’s some sort of horrible affliction, and then moaning about it to your friends, you discredit the real thing -- so that if and when the real thing does arrive, they will have used up all their sympathy.

Alternatively, you’re blocked for half an hour, try one of the quick-fix cures you’ve heard about, and presto, your brain is cranking out the words so quickly, your fingers can hardly keep up with them. But any problem that can be cured by typing “peanut butter, peanut butter” a thousand times (yes, I’ve heard this one suggested) is no more a real Writer’s Block than a dejection you can cure by eating an ice-cream cone is clinical depression.

If this is the worst you’ve ever suffered be grateful. And you’ve no real need to read the rest of this entry. But if you’ve already been through worse than that, you might want to read on.


Chronic, Intermittent Writer’s Block -- This one may not last very long either, maybe only for a few days, but it keeps coming back, and often it gets worse over time. People will tell you it’s all in your head. And as a matter of fact, they’re probably right -- but that’s not to dismiss the problem. Prisons and mental institutions are full of people whose problems are all in their heads. People end up living in cardboard boxes because of problems that are all in their heads. Subjectively speaking, where else do we live but inside our heads? If the underlying problem that is stopping you from writing is mental or emotional, it’s no less serious for that. It may be fear of success, or fear of failure, it may be the kind of perfectionism that prevents you from ever being satisfied with anything you’ve written, or a lack of confidence, or ... it may be a lot of different things, but whatever it is there’s a good chance that under a slightly different guise it’s having an effect on other parts of your life. You may be able to fix it on your own, you may need therapy, but the first step is to identify it. You won’t be able to do this without looking behind, beyond, around the block, to find those other areas of your life where it’s probably lurking.

On the other hand, there is a possibility that it’s not in your head after all, and that what you are suffering is a milder form -- or an earlier case -- of the third sort of Writer’s Block.

The Big One, the Bad One, the One that Makes Your Life a Living Hell --This is the block that goes on and on and on. This is the Real Thing. But remember, it’s still just a symptom of something else.

That something else may be a bad marriage or a bad relationship that is sapping your creative power. It may be a job that is too demanding and you hate it anyway. It may be that you are the primary caretaker for an ailing parent. If it’s anything along these lines, you may have to fix your life before you can fix your Writer’s Block. Get marriage counseling (or a divorce), leave your creepy boyfriend (or girlfriend), change jobs, find a way to convince other family members to take some of the load of caring for Mom or Dad off of your shoulders. I don’t say that it will be easy; I don’t even say that it will always be possible. But if you can fix it, do. And if you can’t fix it just yet, don’t add to your level of stress by castigating yourself because you don’t write. (And don’t listen to all of those well-meaning people who are trying to be helpful by encouraging you to write, but who are unwittingly making you feel guilty because you can’t. Do the things that you have to do now, and leave the writing for another, better time.)

But it’s also possible that the something else may be a medical cause. Yes, you read that right. Writer’s Block may be a symptom of something that has to be fixed by a doctor -- or at the very least by a healthier life style. The problem may be clinical depression, the kind that arises from a chemical imbalance in your brain. They have cures for that now. It may take a while for you and your doctor (or shrink) to find the one that works best for you, but the sooner you find out that this is your problem and start looking for the cure, the sooner you’ll find it. Or the cause may be something like undiagnosed diabetes or anemia. (Recently, in my own case, it was something worse, but I’m not going to go into that, because I don’t want to be misquoted as having said, “If you have Writer’s Block you’ve probably got --------.”) See a doctor, get some tests, find out. Even if you can trace your Writer’s Block back to one of the other causes up above, health problems may also be contributing. If so, you need to address those. Because one of the best things you can do for the creative part of your brain is give it a healthy body to live in.