- Image by inkberrypix via Flickr
It’s the most tragic of diseases, an infection that plagues the mind – you stare at a blank screen, with its infinite possibilities, the documents waiting to be formed. It should be such an easy thing to create prose, to turn nonsense into fact; and yet you can think of nothing to offer. There are no words that seem admirable. There are no ideas that seem worthy. All thoughts instead shape themselves into fickle creatures, unwilling to reveal themselves to you or your deadlines. You… have writer’s block.
And this was always assumed to be a myth. You’ve never struggled with sentences before. You believed such a thing could never occur – but it has. And you are left now with nothing but the looming hours, the assignments meant to fill them.
This an common complication, experienced by most would be writers within their scholastic careers. The mind betrays all intentions, leaving an individual helpless to craft the needed pages. And the temptation is to simply walk away – to leave all work behind and replace it with easier pastimes. There can be no gain, after all, in tapping out occasional ideas, dull words.
This is not true.
The only way to cure the dreaded writer’s block is to refuse to accept it. Whether you are trying to create fantastical worlds or are proving theories with research papers, you must continue to type; even when all efforts are clumsy. Force yourself to attempt a sentence. When that is finally completed, try to conquer the concept of a paragraph. The process will be undeniably tedious but it will still offer the reward of progress: you will have pages to show. This is important (not only for your deadline but for your own certainty).
Inspiration is too often confused to a swift thing, formed only under the ideal circumstances. It can, however, be instead the effect of slow rhythms and patience. Write and do not stop.
