Hit a brick wall with your novel? Stuck with what comes next in your choreography? Here’s a trick: do something. Don’t worry if it’s good or profound. If you get something out, you can always adjust it and make it better. But if you do nothing, ya got nuthin’!
I don’t believe in it, and before I say another word, you should appreciate that “writers block” as I’m using the phrase refers to any creative exercise where you feel compelled to make creative progress, whether that’s from internal forces or external assignment.
I understand the challenges of keeping your metaphoric pen moving. I also understand the challenges of feeling like your pen is dry, like you’ve got nothing to give, like there’s nothing to say. Perhaps most of all, I totally understand the exhaustion that can come from just dealing with the world. Life is exhausting. It wears out even the most motivated, the most focused, the most driven to succeed.
But here’s the thing: if you care about creating anything, care enough that you actually want to spend your precious, fleeting time working to make something worthwhile, there is no such thing as writers block so long as your motivation to create is greater than all of your reasons not to.
What’s a person to do? Put simply, you’ve just got to keep your pen moving.
I realize that probably sounds stupid. You’re reading this because sometimes you struggle with writers block! But the deal is that you wouldn’t care about writers block unless you had something to say in the first place. You’re only blocked if you were initially intent on doing something, then suddenly struggling to get it done. If you’re just a bystander—that is, if you’re not in the process of trying to create something—then you’re not blocked at all (at least for the moment), and there’s no shame in just enjoying the morning sunshine on your face.
But if you do have something to say, there’s no magic incantation that can change your reality. You just have to speak. Say anything. Get words down. Put paint on your canvas. Open your lens and look through your viewfinder. Do not become tacitly complicit with the cajoling inner voice in your head saying you’re too tired or too empty or too distracted. Lean in to whatever part of you that can manage to keep moving, even if you’re barely managing to get one crawling hand and knee to propel you forward by inches. You do not have to be good. You do not have to be profound. You do not have to paint an image that renders the world in sun-drenched blues or sultry tangerine, supplying sublime commentary on matters profound. You simply have to make a mark.
Then you need to make another, and another, and repeat.