Writer's Block
by Elaine Handley
The Cause of Writer's Block
"Interviewer: I've read that you don't get writer's block often. What is your advice to those who do?
Allan Gurganus: My theory is you don't get it if you don't believe in it. I've never heard of anyone getting plumber's block, or traffic cop's block....But if you just tell the truth in the most effective way you can, chances are you will come closer to doing what you want to do. I heard a wonderful phrase from a psychoanalyst: Perfect is the enemy of good. So if you think you're going to write perfectly chances are you'll write nothing, but if you hope to write well chances are you'll write perfectly."
There's hardly a writer out there who hasn't experienced writer's block at some time or other. Students often report that their biggest problem with a writing assignment is getting started. What causes writer's block--fear of the empty expanse of white paper in front of you--and what can a person do about it?
Writer's block is caused primarily by one thing: judging your writing before or as you write. If you have perfectionist tendencies, then writing may be particularly difficult for you. What is essential for you to keep in mind is that writing is a process, and a process takes time. If you expect what you write to come out perfectly in the first draft then you will be plagued by writer's block your whole life. The first draft is called a rough draft for the very reason that it is a piece of writing yet unformed. Your job, as de Maupassant advised, is to "get black on white." And contrary to what many people think, you don't have to know what you want to say or even what you want to write about before you begin writing. As a writer your initial job is to find out what you know and what you don't. C.Day Lewis said "We do not write in order to be understood, we write in order to understand." The way you begin writing is to try some prewriting activities.
One Solution
A way to think about writing is to imagine that there are three parts of your personality that have to get involved before any writing project is finished. Let's call these three entities the
Writer's block occurs when the Editor part of you and the Inventor part of you try to work on a piece of writing at the same time. The Inventor part of you revved up about an writing idea and the editor part of you is being critical, maybe even taunting you about not articulating your idea well enough, (or if you have a really mean editor, he'll tell you that it's not a good idea anyway) and he'll point out your problems with grammar, or spelling or syntax. These two parts of your personality must be separated if you are to write well. The Editor, who is the task master, needs to be put out in the hall to wait his turn. You need the Editor, but not until later. Having the Editor in the room the same time you're working with the Creator in you is like trying to shower and get dressed at the same time without getting wet. Impossible!
The Inventor
This is the passionate part of you, the place in you that conjures up ideas, visions, dreams, schemes, plans. This is the part of you that is most child-like—that wants what she wants, that employs imagination and flights of fancy, that is impulsive and playful, that has flashes of inspiration and temper--and who can be very opinionated. It's the part of ourselves that as adults we most often keep under wraps, which again may account for so many of us having writer's block.
We need the Inventor part of ourselves in the beginning of the writing process. We need to give this freer aspect of our personality permission to jot down ideas, to get carried away on paper, to be messy and disorganized, if needed, to brainstorm and plot.
This is where the creative juices flow, If you are going to write originally, find a unique angle or perspective, and locate your own voice and style, this is the part that must be allowed to work. The Inventor needs to be given free rein to goof around on paper, doodle, make maps, write down whatever comes to mind, even if it seems illogical or off the topic of what you think you want to write about. It's the Inventor who's job it is to come up with the first, rough draft after doing some prewriting activities.
The Reader
Okay, so the Inventor part of you has cooked up a rough draft. Now what do you do with it? You know it's rough, that there's probably some good ideas in it, but there's a lot to be trimmed away and added. Where do you start? Well, you need some advice, some direction, so you call on your Reader self.
(By the way, it's much easier to engage the Reader part of you after you've had some distance from your writing. Isaac Asimov used to put his manuscript in a drawer for a year before he looked at it again—unfortunately if you tell your professors that that's what you're doing either you will be ancient by the time you finish your college degree, or your professor will chalk up your explanation as one of the greatest excuses for procrastination ever and present you with a No Credit for the course. But even a day or two away from a particular piece of writing can help you approach your draft more objectively than is possible right after the heat of writing it. Usually people feel after the first draft they have either written something incredibly brilliant, or amazingly banal—and usually the truth is somewhere in the middle).
The Reader's job is to read your draft as objectively as possible and give you some tasks to do. Where do you need to develop, add more ideas and details, to the piece of writing? Where do you get off the track? What works? What's clever, or lively, or insightful? Does the introduction work—do you even have an introduction? Is what you've written logical—easy to follow—clear? The Reader is dispassionate, a kind of literary accountant, just noting what you have and what you don't have. The Reader gathers information about your piece—pointing out what you need to do yet to complete your piece of writing.
When the Reader is done with her assessment, then you re-engage the Inventor, who's been tempered by feedback from the reader and get to work. You rewrite and revise until you think you've got it. How many times do you revise a piece? Well, not to discourage you, I recount a piece of an interview with Hemingway:
"Hemingway: I rewrote the ending to Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, 39 times before I was satisfied.
Interviewer: Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had you stumped?
Hemingway: Getting the words right."
Another writer, James Michner wrote: "You write the first draft really to see how it's going to come out. My connectives, my clauses, my subsidiary phrases don't come naturally to me and I'm very prone to repetition of words; so I never even write an important letter in the first draft. I can never recall anything of mine that's ever been printed in less than three drafts."
The point of it is that writing is mostly re-writing, or re-seeing your piece again and again, each time making the meaning clearer, further developing your ideas, doing whatever you need to communicate with your reader with clarity and conciseness. It's like watching a photograph being processed and going from blurry to sharply focused. Revision is where the craft of writing comes in. This is where you tinker with words, and fashion sentences and paragraphs to make them strong and true. In some ways it's like working on a puzzle, making each piece fit into a whole that expresses what you mean to convey.
The Editor
Some time after you're well into the revision process you can let the Editor in. The Editor is the critical, fussy, bossy, knowledgeable part of you who wants your piece of writing to be as good as it can be. It's okay to be somewhat perfectionistic now. Let the Editor check each sentence for unnecessary words, for strong verbs and nouns, for structure and correct punctuation. Give the Editor free rein to be as picky as he wants to be. Let the Editor harumph and sigh and roll his eyes over your writing and point out how clunky this sentence is, how weak your conclusion is, how you forgot to spellcheck. Read aloud your writing to your Editor, because his ears often pick up what his eyes don't. And when he finally says it will have to do, hand your writing in and get a second opinion from someone outside of you.
The Nature of Writing
Writing is a contradictory process. It's hard, or as W. Somerset Maugham said "To write simply is a difficult as to be good." And it is also an empowering process as William Hazlitt noted "The more a man writes, the more he can write." The writing process is typically frustrating and enlightening, thrilling and discouraging, humbling and exalting. In a word, it's life. Catherine Drinker Bowen said "Writing is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once more in that mirror which waits always before or behind him." So expect to feel both the highs and lows when you're writing—it's just The Nature of the Beast.
If given the opportunity to fast forward to the end of our lives, I doubt many of us would choose to go right to the end. We'd want to live our lives and see what happens along the way. Likewise, don't cheat yourself out of the process of writing. Often it's fun, or as Ray Bradbury pointed out "Creativity is continual surprise." Writing is a way to add texture and meaning to your life—to be surprised by discovering what you know and what you don't know, whether you're writing a research paper, a letter to a friend, or starting a novel.
"The reward of writing is in the writing itself. It comes with finding the right word. The quest for a superb sentence is a groping for honesty, a search for the innermost self, a self-discipline, a generous giving out of one's most intimate rhythms and meanings. To be a writer is to sit down at one's desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone—just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over...." - John Hersey
