Writer’s Bloc (guide) For The Millennials and Gen X
The following article contains a younger approach of a Writer’s Bloc. A combination of personal remedies and over-the-internet methods for getting rid of Writer’s Bloc.
Writing is all fun and games until you have a plan laid out, the content ready, the flow of the article set and then you are hit by — hold your breath — the infamous Writer’s Block. There are theories spawned across the internet about if it really exists or is it merely a conspiracy, whether it has to do with our standards or the chemical reactions in ur brain, and finally whether or not is your content good enough to reflect the contemplation.
Hi, I’m Chandni. I write. Sometimes more often than the others. I know you know me, I put in this sentence so that you loosen your jaw, place your digital device just a little further away from your face and relax your shoulders.
Thank you. You may now proceed your reading. :)
The infamous writing bloc is like this weird villain character of a cheap movie which you know won’t really do you any harm, but simply lingers around waaaaaay too long for you to start asking yourself — why am I still watching this movie. I’m not very sure if William Shakespeare ever hit one of these road blocks but I sure do. Plenty a handful times have I been smooth sailing on my laptop with my fingers gliding over my backlit keyboard typing away the most (what I think when I am typing) beautiful article which ends up being nothing short of a disaster. The reasons for this happening can be due to multiple factors like stress, lack of inspiration, frustration, fear of not fitting in, self-criticism, distractions, burn out, and the list goes on.
Sometimes we are not able to simply mirror what is going on inside our heads. It is as if the content is there, we know what we want to talk about but it just doesn’t come out the way we think about it. It feels as if our hand to brain connection just faced a major glitch and we cannot fix it so we backspace, trash it out or simply name the file ”hfeueyuebyxe” and leave it there. Even though most of us bloggers just hit the backspace, it just feels like this:
There is an upside to this though. No it is not another mug of coffee, dark as the soul of Sheldon Lee Cooper. It is ways and methods which have been tried and tested to help you overcome this hinderance. As you scroll along, I’ll be sharing with you some methods that I have *personally* tried, and use time to time.
#1 Give your mom your phone.
Indirectly this will force you to write. Sorry boomers, but this is for the generations post the 90s. And I am serious. Get up, go to your mom and give her your phone! Ask her to keep it until you are done with your task at hand and you can have it back when you’re done. Sure you can access Instagram through your laptop, but trust me you won’t be able to double tap for the like button.
This strategy works perfectly well if you have a deadline overdue (procrastinators take note). This seems a little immature but trust me, you’d do pretty much everything to get your phone back. We (again, millennials and the gen x) were trained very well for this back in the days when we had to prepare for our board exams.
The focus point here is to get rid of the distraction. Once you deduct distraction from chaos, you will get more clarity, maybe not a 100% clarity but even a 10% works well. Once the device goes out of our hand, our brain slowly responds to it as ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Then you can slowly redirect your attention and focus to your blog where you left.
#2 Close your window. Open PPT.
You read it correct. The fancy slide application created by Microsoft that people wearing coats use to deliver convincing speeches to their venture capitalists. Maybe write in your email, save as a draft and then hit publish. Or use that notepad or notes app on your laptop to efficiently jot down your ideas.
Technically, switching from Microsoft word document to a PPT or Gmail helps us slightly change our response behaviour towards the content. A lot of us are very efficient in writing emails. Some of us are masters at making PPTs that stand out of the crowd. A handful are just so lazy that they use (finally someone) the speech to text method to write their content.
Personally I work better on the Notes app than Microsoft Word. You can use apps like Evernote that keep all your data synced on your devices. Or Microsoft OneNote. Trust me it comes very handy when you just randomly jot down a quote that you heard in a GoalCast video which you want to write an entire article about.
#3 Original Ideas Don’t Always Exist. Recycle.
(My version of Mark Twain’s Quote)
Google has probably already seen thousands of searches on the content topic you are about to post, hundreds of articles in the genre and a whole bunch of questions on the same. So my friend, welcome to the digital age — a place where you can beg, borrow and steal content, but always give credits to the real author.
Unless you are talking about something very unique and original, you will definitely need more hours be dedicated to your project, however if it has already been written about, chances are that you can refer it. Maybe search for some articles in the same genre and collect a few ideas. Give your personal opinion on something rather than copying someone else’s just because it is convenient.
#4 Use .jpeg
Memes, if you want to attract the younger population. Infographics, if you want to deliver maximum content in one go. GIFs, if you wanna say a lot but on a budget. Wordles, if you want to stress on a particular topic and reinforce it.
I think you get it. The crux of using a visual media is to give the readers’ eyes a break, no doubt but also to add some colour to the text. Otherwise it will look like RS Agarwal, maths book, of your 10th standard.
Also you can use the image or the visual media to highlight the content of your blog, attach backlinks for more traffic and (if it is original) advertise for your blog. Images can also be used to share memes cause who doesn’t need a little laugh every once in a while!
#5 Free Writing
Modern Problems require Modern Solutions.
This is a very commonly found option under how to overcome a Writer’s Bloc. It is simply writing quickly, freely, without thinking much and just jotting down the points as they come to us.
I have tried this, and trust me this works. Majorly, the reason, I feel, lies in the piece of content sounding like it is coming from a human rather than Siri. This pattern simply writes the way you think. Like when you explain a topic to a friend 5 minutes before the exam just so that they can score a single mark out of ten. Kinda like your own version of ‘____ for the Dummies’.
SuperSonic said, ”Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”. Just like that this blog post has come to an end and so has the coffee in my mug. To recap, you may do the following when hit by the Writer’s Bloc:
⁃ Give your mom your phone
⁃ Close your window. Open PPT
⁃ Original Ideas Don’t Always Exist. Recycle
⁃ Use .jpeg
⁃ Free Writing
PS: I found the ultimate Writer’s Bloc Meme!
