As a humanities and screenwriting student, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m currently overwhelmed with a series of writing deadlines. Sometimes a good idea only gets you so far until the inertia kicks in and the inspiration stops flowing. Writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s block provides a stiff barrier to inspiration and simultaneously sequesters self doubt into the writer. Writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s block isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t limited to writing. Any creative act reaches a dull point, a point where the ideas stop flowing and the artist isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sure how to proceed. As I am currently battling writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s block in order to complete my creative assignments for the term, I thought it would be fun to share some thoughts I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had about this universal problem, and some strategies and philosophies I have developed to combat it.<\/p>\n
To begin, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to quote something a friend recently told me. Writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s block isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a loss of inspiration, rather, it is a loss of willpower. How can you be uninspired when you have a whole lifetime of experiences, and an entire world to engage with? Inspiration is always waiting around the corner, but sometimes, taking those extra steps forward become daunting. So the next question to ask is, what causes us to lose our willpower? And what can we do to get it back?<\/p>\n
I think the biggest thing that holds us back from our creative pursuits is fear. Fear of not being good enough. Fear that the words I write on the page are flawed, that whatever I produce will not live up to the literary giants that I inspired me to follow in their footsteps. This fear is paralyzing. It is also, ultimately, quite foolish. No one got it right the first time. Many established authors say they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t proud of a draft they produced until the tenth rewrite. What does this tell us? Imperfection should not be feared or avoided, but instead accepted as inevitable. Because only through a wholehearted embrace of the imperfections in our work can we gain clarity, understand the flaws in our vision, and enhance our artistic shortcomings in order to become perfectly, uniquely imperfect.<\/p>\n
I believe this mindset is essential to overcoming writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s block. Knowing that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to mess up takes alleviates the pressure to always be at the top of my game. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wait for inspiration to find me, I find inspiration through uncompromising, persistent work. And I remember that first and foremost, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m doing this because I enjoy it, not because there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s any pressure to be great. So I write every day for a couple of hours, I have a time of day I like best (for me, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s either late night or early morning), designated spots to work at (my room, full of inspiring posters), and sometimes, a writing buddy – someone to stop me from packing up early when I feel like quitting early.<\/p>\n
On a day when I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like writing, I trick myself into doing it anyway. I read over something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve already written or drawn, planning to revise rather than create. But revising is just another part of the creative process, and this inevitably leads to a couple of hours of work. So, the point is, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t check out. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t give up. And most importantly, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be afraid to fail. Everyone fails. Everyone writes something bad. Writing something bad is the first step to writing something good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a humanities and screenwriting student, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m currently overwhelmed with a series of writing deadlines. Sometimes a good idea only gets you so far until the inertia kicks in and the inspiration stops flowing. Writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s block provides a stiff barrier to inspiration and simultaneously sequesters self doubt into the writer. Writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s block isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t limited to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1696,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1696"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5711,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5671\/revisions\/5711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}