Reframing Writer’s Block: Creating to Connect With Yourself
When writer’s block is something more urgent. And how to get back when you’ve gone too far out.
When writer’s block is something more urgent. And how to get back when you’ve gone too far out.
I’m a writer. A creator. A maker…
And yet, it’s been days, weeks, or months since I’ve sat in front of the blank canvas.
I know how important writing is to me.
It’s no substitute for therapy and yet I need it. It supports my life and yet I can go without it, with no immediate consequences. But there is a price and it’s paid over the long term.
Like legendary author Stephen King once said,
“Life is not a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”
Maybe you’re like me and art is your gateway to flow. And without inspiration, like me, you have no way of making it back there. And now, the blank page takes on a new meaning.
Beyond the possibility and chance at a fresh start, the emptiness of it is daunting. All the things it could be (what the voice in the back of my mind says should be) but am I convicted enough for any of them?
This pressure can be hard to break. And it’s a cycle many spend seasons in.
But if you’re a creator like me, there’s no choice here. Either the dry streak breaks or we do. So, what do we do to overcome writer’s block?
I can only share my advice.
Having been a professional writer and creative for a decade now, (geeze I’m old) I can share how I’ve led myself, and how I’ve led my teams. And the perspectives that have helped us experience tangible shifts when we needed them, and go onto to create our best work.
The good news is, these shifts are in your control. You can control how you react to something and you can choose your perspective each new day.
Which is good to remember, because you’ll need to control the way you react when you learn the reasons why you struggle with writer’s block or creative blocks of any kind.
Because in the moment when you face that pressure, it may feel like the words aren’t flowing because you have nothing to give today, but really…
You Might Be Afraid of What You’ll Find
Especially the longer it’s been since you’ve been able to flow worry-free.
The more time away, the more ominous and shadowy the mental image of whatever is waiting on the other side of that creative gate becomes.
And there is no picking and choosing what comes through. Things have been building up, and they’re all just sort of loosly pressing against the door waiting for you to open it.
When you finally get back to it, what comes through comes through.
And there are many things to give one pause that may come through: feelings unprocessed, truths unfaced, and anything that we know will require us to change if we accept it. Which can be fun, or frightening to explore and make art from.
But it’s not the things that come through that most discover that most people fear, it’s creating after accepting them. Knowing, they have become a part of us, and will become a part of what we make.
After all you’ve already experienced these things, but now you get to do something with them. And in order to get back to your flow, to the present, you have to go through them.
But the good news is, others can smell the bravery on what you make when you do this and they resonate with it. This is what makes others feel something at all in what we do. They can feel what is real or not.
And there’s no way around this, short of making uninteresting art.
In the creative birthing process, everything thing we make, from big to small, leaves its impact on us. And unless you’re writing vacuum-cleaner manuals, a part of you is going to get mixed into the final product of whatever you make it.
We leave our mark on what we make, which others can see more clearly than we can outselves.
In this way, we have a more vulnerable relationship with those who read what we write, or consume what we create, than those even closest to us. And our audience can see a side of us we don’t intentionally let others see.
And while never being a truly accurate reflection of you (after all, they’re byproducts of the creative process) those things are still coming from you.
They may not be pretty, and in fact if you’re expressing parts of yourself that you may not even be aware of, they likely won’t be—after all they’re outside of your awareness for a reason.
But there is a benefit to doing this, besides making moving art.
And that is that connecting with it and expressing that part of you is a path for you to get through what you’re going through now as you grow and back to reality—no matter how far out you’ve gone.
A Silver Cord Back to Reality
The longer anyone goes without connecting with and expressing themselves, the more out of touch with their true feelings they can become.
It’s totally normal in life to experience things and need time to process them. After all, it’s part of growing up to spend your adult years processing all the things that happened during your formative years.
To extract lessons and create meaning from them and empower your choices now. And it’s normal for those experiences to stack up. But the longer you go the higher the stack gets, and the denser your disconnection to not just yourself, but also reality, becomes.
In lucid dreaming, some people describe a silver cord connecting them back to their bodies. Lucid dreaming aside, this is a pretty good metaphor for what writer’s block and finding your way back and through it can feel like.
You’re out there experiencing the world, one adventure after another, following your courageous heart. And after some time, you can get far out there.
But no matter how far out you go, you always have that cord tethering you back — retracing your journey or impressions of it and reconnecting with the present.
And at any time, you can stop moving in the direction you’re going now, grab your end and follow it back.
Back to the present, with what you’ve learned.
Back to the place where you do your thing, and share what you’ve found with the others.
It can be good to know that there are others out there going through the same things. And that while the journey you’re experiencing is yours alone, the process of it is something you share with others.
Millions of us are going through our life experiences and continue to show up each day. Others are drifting far out there on that cord, letting themselves get really lost in the ideas, feelings, and experiences of that life.
And that’s good, because the more times you make that journey, out there and back again, the more you know that: it’s okay to go out as far as you want, as long as you come back each day.
Stay in the Flow
Bringing this all together now:
The easiest way to defeat writer’s block is to follow that cord back each day.
Dream wild each night, wake up each morning and go as far out as your journey requires you to. But come back each day.
In our journeys, we all face challenges unique to us required for us to grow.
But that discipline to return and share what you’ve discovered is what will get you through it. And the more you ritualize that process, the easier it will be to repeat it.
Because writer’s block isn’t a result of you having nothing to give.
Rather, it’s a build-up of the wellspring of experiences, reactions, and simply life that you create from—and now you just don’t know where to start. There’s a dense wall of half-started projects and open loops to either let go or get through and tangled emotions that need combed out, before your inspiration engine can start running like it should again.
So, if you’re feeling the fear of the blank page and it’s been awhile, just knowing what you can expect can make it easier and help you go from frustration and procrastination, to creating from a place of inspiration and connection to what’s going on now.
So, make a weekend out of it, and most importantly… keep showing up after that. Because it’s far easier to maintain the momentum of showing up each day than it is to create after many, many, many consecutive days of denying yourself the pleasure.
Plus, the momentum you build can push you through new experiences and stay connected and dynamic with reality, making it easier to create, while making what you create more powerful to others.
So, journey out, accumulate experiences and challenges and hopes and dreams and all of that—and then follow that cord back each day and create from it and connect with the present.
Not only will writer’s block be a less frequent annoyance in your life. But you’ll be surprised at who you become in the process when you prioritize this part of you each day.
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Colton Swabb is an author, lecturer and entrepreneur. In his free workshop, Unlocking Hidden Power, he teaches the 4 most powerful methods guaranteed to help you reach the next level in your self-awareness.