I don't believe in writer's block and neither should you.
Writers are lucky. We have plenty of metaphors to guide us through that ominous threshold between nothingness and creative output known as ‘writer's block’: a mentor told me that the first draft of anything you write is like priming and stretching a canvas; there are endless debates on ‘pantsing’ vs ‘plotting’; and I’m pretty sure you’ve read your fair share of hot takes and Twitter threads on why you too should embrace your shitty first draft.
I’ve always struggled with having a perfectionist bent. I have a carnal memory of sitting in front of my desktop computer in fifth grade plotting out sentences word by word, crying in frustration, with my mom seated beside me and wringing her hands at my despair.
I thought I could unblock myself if I just had enough inspiration and ideas to work with.
When I got to college I had access to so many books, so much exciting theory, the ideas were pouring in through an endless font. But I struggled with longer form writing that required revision, and handed in essays that were incomplete, closer to shitty first drafts than polished finished pieces.
I don’t have an MFA, so over the years I’ve found ways to overcome the stagnated feeling of fingers frozen at the keyboard. In this workshop I’ll share some of my strategies including: - Techniques I adapted from my background in theater;
- How I learned to close read and annotate my own work to discover what it was trying to say;
- Incorporating mind mapping and brainstorming at every stage of writing - A game changing late stage revision strategy from Matthew Salesses’s Craft in the Real World (buy his book if you can, it’s amazing)
I hope you’ll join me in my workshop tomorrow with seeds of ideas that need development, notes on scraps of paper, printed drafts of works in progress, a willingness to embrace playful exercises and movement (within your capacity) and an openness to accepting that you have everything you need to write. Oh and sticky notes, highlighters, pencils, and multi colored pens.