The Dreaded Writer's Block

We've all been there (if you haven't, you get two gold stars and a Bidoof).

Writer's block is where no matter what you do, you just can't seem to come up with anything to write for an extended period of time. It can be very frustrating and everything you do manage to write just seems like trash. Nothing is good enough.

It can be very difficult to escape but it is plenty possible. What do you do to escape this void of despair?

I simply... don't write, I guess. Forcing writing is never a good idea for both the writer or the reader, so I never try to force something out unless I really have to - and even then, it's completely bad.

Although, I've always been one to say that the best way to get inspired is to start writing, but that's different from writers block.

What I like to do is have multiple things that I am writing at once. For example, right now I am in three active roleplays, am working on a story of my own, as well as writing poems or song lyrics. A lot of my writers block comes down to not having something to write for something I might need to, but I find that writing for other things often helps me out in terms of getting inspiration.

I had a huge case of block when it came to journeys, everything I was doing just felt stale and boring. It took me a year of writing other genres before I could write a journey with the same pizzaz that I had when I first started. Theres really no surefire cure sadly.

I personally just draw up fanfics/other literary works from my bookmarks; sometimes a good prose or two is all it takes to get you back in the mood. The success rate of this for me is somewhere near 50%.

Usually when I experience writer's block, I like to spend some reading someone else's work to steal their ideas get some inspiration, I guess. It could be a book, a fanfiction, or even another RP. If I'm still not in the mood, I'll have a crack at freewriting to help me get back into putting words to paper. Just writing about rubbish and a whole lot of nothing without the stress of actually making something good feels pretty nice, imo.

Calm down, eat food, go outside and bask in the sunlight, do what you think is fun...

...go back to writing.

Rinse, repeat :)

Ive found that, as others have, that doing something else is very helpful. Doing something else allows me to put my focus elsewhere, recharging my writing and creativity batteries in the process. It's amazing what a little music and shameless singing along will do for ya.

Usually I either take a long break or try to find inspiration somewhere. I've found that inspiration always comes from the most unlikely places. I always try to carry something to write with and something to write on whenever an idea strikes my mind (because it always vanishes later and I end up kicking myself)

White Noise said:

Usually I either take a long break or try to find inspiration somewhere. I've found that inspiration always comes from the most unlikely places. I always try to carry something to write with and something to write on whenever an idea strikes my mind (because it always vanishes later and I end up kicking myself)

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I know what you mean. I couldn't tell how many times I had a great idea for my character's story and by the time I'm able to get to a computer, I've lost it. Memory is such a fragile thing.

The topic that keeps on spawning.

Forever.

I just work through it. Giving myself too much time off of a post makes me that much more prone to being disinterested in continuing it altogether. A break to me leads to procrastination, and procrastination to abandonment, so I just do it to get it out of the way.

More than your typical writers block where you don't know what to write, I tend to run into these weird walls where I'll know exactly what I want to happen story-wise but I still won't be able to make the words flow. When this happens it can last days or even weeks.

I find that the best I can do is just not do anything. I just wait for it to pass and then eventually the words come.

I just don't write. Thankfully my life isn't based on my writing, it's just a fun distraction.