Friday Free Day: Writer’s Block; beat it in 3 easy ways.

Writer’s Block is one of the unavoidable and unpleasant aspects of every writer’s journey. Even great writers such as Stephen King have voiced that they still struggle with it. However there are a few things you can do that will help get through it.

1) Stop Self-Editing! One of the most common (and most detrimental) things that writers do is self-edit as they are writing. Stop it. Finish the work before you edit. Trust me when I tell you, you will (if you are worth your salt) edit your entire manuscript at least four or five times before you even send it to an agent. Just accept that your first draft IS rough and WILL need edits, and get the ink out; you can’t edit a blank page. *

2) Walk away. Seriously, just walk away. The human brain is an amazing creation and one of the most incredible things about it is that it will be working on thoughts even while you are not focused on them. Go spend time with your family, go have a drink with friends, go for a long walk, just go and leave your writing where it is for a day or so. (In his book On Writing Stephen King said that while writing The Stand, he hit a horrible block and discovered the fix to his plot while on a long walk.) Let your brain work and do not freak out about it.

3) Go read. If there is one thing every writer needs to understand it is that you need to be reading as often as possible. You will draw inspiration from good literature and will learn lessons from bad literature. Good writers read at least 25 books every year, great writers read between 75 and 100.

*It bears mentioning that one common reason for writer’s block is that people did not plan out their work well enough and thus write themselves into a corner. If this is the case then obviously you must amend that area before finishing the work, but do everything you can to ONLY edit the things that you have to to get the book rolling again.