GUEST COLUMN Pushing Past Writer’s Block - The Discipline of Inspiration by Jennifer Lieberman
Have you ever been stuck in a story and still forced yourself to stare at a screen for hours to fulfil a required time limit of ‘work’? Or have you ever forced out pages of nonsense to feel like you were being productive only to delete them soon after? I don’t know about you but I hate when I’m told that to be a writer I have to write everyday. The advice usually comes with a required page amount (5-10 pages a day) or a time requirement (2-5 hours) and although I know it’s well meaning, I just don’t buy it. I don’t write every day. There, I dared to say it; what many writers are afraid to admit. Granted I wear many hats, and have another career outside of writing, but so do most of us. Sure, we’d all love to get to the point in our careers that all we do is write, but that isn’t the reality for most writers and creatives in general. My writing style and forms fluctuate from plays to scripts, poetry to books; no matter what I’m writing, the process of conjuring worlds, characters, arcs and emotions is the same. Some of us write intuitively where we don’t know exactly where we’re going when we sit down and some of us need to have everything mapped out. No matter what your process, I’m sure you’ve had those moments when you just don’t know what comes next...and if you haven’t you’re a superhero of your craft and please share your secret. Although I’ve been stuck many times in the past, I’ve never had writer’s block, at least I refuse to call it that. What I refer to as writer’s block is when one is stuck and chooses to have a battle of wits with one’s imagination to bleed a stone. I simply refuse to do that. I don’t see the point of fighting with myself, that only fuels my doubt and discouragement. I know that one day or one week of inspired writing or being in the zone will yield a better product than weeks or months of forced writing. So, during these times of feeling blocked I choose to take a much 98 | UncagedBooks.com
kinder and gentler approach. I walk away. I walk away from the screen, from my desk, from the story and I let it breathe. Let me be clear, I’m talking specifically about the process of creating new ideas, not about being lazy during editing. The most important thing to focus on when we get stuck is to stay inspired, not necessarily about the project at hand, but to stay inspired creatively. Staying inspired is part of the process many of us take for granted when we are pushing towards a deadline or trying to wrap up a draft. Staying inspired in the process is just as much a discipline as forcing out the arbitrary ‘obligatory’ pages or hours a day. We don’t need to be physically writing to be writing. Story blocks have a way of working themselves out when we give ourselves permission to walk away. Ever notice once you give up on finding your keys they magically appear? There are so many ways to stay inspired that have nothing to do with staring at the screen, or picking up a pen (yes, I’m old school and still put pen to paper). Most times when we feel blocked, the greatest gift we can give ourselves is permission to walk away and be in process. The definition of process is for you to decide, but it has to do with feeding your imagination. It can be research, it can be listening to music or watching a great movie. It can be going to a museum, an amusement park or the beach. What gets your juices flowing? Painting? Playing an instrument? Exercise? Sex? Connecting with nature? Going for a great meal? A good laugh with friends? The possibilities of what we can do to stay creatively charged are infinite and nurturing our imagination is key. How can we inspire others with our work, when we’re not inspired by our work? In Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way she talks about the ‘artist date’, insisting that once a week we take our inner child out to fuel our imagination and creative life, maintaining that all creativity
