Earlier this Halloween week, in Part I of this article, I shared several ideas for beating back the Writer’s Block Demon. Let’s look at a few more.
- Cut your writing task down to size.
Sometimes you may feel that your writing assignment is so overwhelming that you just freeze up. It seems like a big, tangled mess that you simply cannot bring yourself to tackle. Well, it may sound like a cliché, but if you zero in on smaller parts of the piece you are writing, you can break it down into manageable chunks. And if you list them all and cross off each one as you accomplish it, you can track your progress.
Set up milestones for yourself and celebrate when you reach them—with a little reward for a job well done, such as a favorite snack or a special outing. For example, you may set your goal at a certain number of pages per day, or a few paragraphs on a subtopic or two. As you begin to reach more milestones, your small bits and pieces will fit together into larger components that increasingly resemble your envisioned final product.
Sometimes people shut down when it comes to writing, yet are very free and easy with their speech. That can be a real strength! Since your writing should sound as conversational as possible, if you have a gift for sounding good in person, you are already halfway there.
My clients often know exactly how to say something orally, but that knowledge gets lost somehow in the writing process. I ask them to tell me what they are trying to say, and we just jot down their exact words. Give it a try yourself and don’t forget to go back with the eye of an editor and pull out the juiciest and more important pieces of information, word images, stories, stylistic turns, and the like.
Brainstorm just a few central words about your topic. Then write down whatever comes to mind when you think of those words one by one. Just let your mind go wherever the words take it. Give yourself permission to think without boundaries, requirements, or stipulations. If you want, add arrows to show how each word relates to the next word or phrase. Got an artistic bent? Include some drawings to represent your ideas.
You will probably end up with a long list of places you might go with your piece. Try to map out or group related ideas, and you will eventually have a solid outline.