In school we learn about grammar, spelling, sentence structure, dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s, and all the little secrets to supposedly writing “well”, but in the end writing is a lot more than just knowing when to start a new paragraph or recognizing the appropriate time to italicize this word or that. Sure, grammar and structure certainly matter on a technical level, but what some might forget is that writing is an art form. What you write is whatever you want it to be! You can decide to plan it all out before you begin, or you can just go with the flow and wing it. It’s up to you, as a writer, and your style is your own. There’s no formulas that have to be utilized, and it’s not a multiple-choice test where only one option is the correct answer. Even grammar is bent and broken at times if it serves some contextual purpose. I’m here to say: Don’t let your perceived technical weaknesses stop you from putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard. The only person who can write like you, is you.

This is the part where I “out” myself a little bit: my lexicon is downright awful and is perhaps my greatest struggle. I constantly have to look up synonyms when the most descriptive words I can think of are “happy” or “it was blue in color”. Most people I’ve talked to have probably noticed just from five minutes of conversation with me that I constantly stumble over myself just trying to remember that word for that thing…you know, the thing! I have a hard time putting together that perfect description, or even identifying particular objects that I can only see in my head, but can’t remember the name of for the life of me. It’s a continual battle, but this doesn’t stop me, and let me tell you why:

If you view writing as an art, which it absolutely is, then writing is merely a creative expression meant to be viewed and consumed, not necessarily “corrected”. Of course, I still want the consumption of my work to be a positive experience for readers, so I will always try my hardest to write in a way that sticks to the “status quo” one might say, but comparing my writing to people more successful, or to people more technically or even creatively skilled than me, does not make me less of a writer. Perhaps it’s a bit obvious, but it turns out writers write. Do you write? Then you’re a writer. Period.

Forget what your technical skill level is. A writer is not defined by how many articles/books they’ve written, how many awards they’ve won, the profit they make from their work, or the size of their audience. If you have something in your soul that is itching to get out, and you have any writing capabilities at all, you can write it. And once you start writing, you’re a writer. Then with practice, patience, and time you will evolve and mold your style into one that is completely unique to you. I’d still recommend educating yourself in those areas you feel you could improve—I sure know expanding my vocabulary would do me a world of good—but don’t let anyone tell you that there’s a “wrong” way to do it, or that you’re not really a writer until you reach “x” milestone. Writing is your self-expression, so claim it, nurture it, take it for a walk and jump rope with it, and you do it your way. Because at the end of the day, the only way to write the “wrong” way is to not write anything at all.

One day you hatch an amazing idea for a book. In your excitement, you hunker down at your desk and start work on it right away. Eventually though, your brain stalls. That project that had you excited at the start has suddenly turned into a nightmare. The words just aren’t coming to you, and the ideas have stopped flowing. What now? In a lot of cases, the book gets abandoned. Sometimes people haven’t even written a single word, and are stuck staring at a blank page! Just like other writers, I’ve experienced bad cases of writer’s block myself, but fortunately I’ve learned some tricks that can help you defeat writer’s block for good.

Create an outline/Return to your outline

One thing that always brought failure to my writing projects was not creating an outline beforehand. I’d have a vague idea in my head of what kind of story I wanted to write, but I did not map it out. I would instead jump right into writing without a clear plan. If you haven’t made an outline yet, make one! Include the beginning of the story, the climax, major turning points, and, of course, the ending of the story. If you’ve already made an outline, but are still struggling on how to get from point A to point B in your novel, you could return to the outline and add more detail to it. Ask yourself questions like: What motivates my characters? What are their personalities? What’s the goal? How are they kept from their goal? And so on.

Whenever you find yourself stuck, it’s never a bad idea to go back to your outline and either tweak it or add more detail to it. You’d be surprised at the kind of new ideas you’d come up with from revisiting the original idea.

Give yourself a deadline

The book that I will soon be releasing on April 21, 2022 was an idea that came to me almost instantly. I was so excited that I pulled out a notebook and made a rough outline as soon as the idea struck. I then set out to get this book done, and I knew that if I didn’t give myself a deadline to finish the first draft by that I would just procrastinate it forever and never complete it. A rather surprising advantage to setting this deadline for myself though was that it forced me to write even when I felt like my ideas were running dry. My deadline date was constantly looming over my head, so at times I told myself it was better to write something than to write nothing. This doesn’t mean that everything you’ll write will be gold, but often times the next day you’re able to come back and make the previous section better after some reflection. It’s a matter of pushing through, even when you feel like you can’t.

Clear your mind of clutter

Life can get stressful as it constantly pulls your mind in opposite directions. Should you focus on this or should you focus on that? And when it comes to writing, your mind might be focusing on a bunch of different puzzle pieces of the same big puzzle, but is struggling to see how to put all those pieces of the story together. It gets worse though, there’s obviously some pieces missing! This situation is incredibly stressful, and what I like to do when I find myself here is take some time to clear my head.

How, you may ask? Well, there’s a number of things you can do. You can go for a walk, for starters. Get out in nature and just breathe in the fresh air for a bit. Keep your story in the back of your head, but don’t focus too hard on it. You can meditate, you can take a relaxing bath, you can listen to some calming music…whatever you need to do to center yourself. It might sound silly, but at a certain point parts of your story will become clearer. You’ll be able to see what works, what doesn’t, and what should be changed. Sometimes you may even get that epiphany you’ve desperately been waiting for! All you had to do was clear your head for a while.

Brainstorm with someone you trust

Some people don’t want to admit to themselves that they don’t have all the answers. You can only pick your own brain for so long before there’s nothing left to pick at. The best course of action in this situation is to seek out someone you trust to bounce ideas off of—my choice is usually my husband. Different people are able to provide different perspectives, or are perhaps just more knowledgeable on a certain subject than you are. And even if this trusted person isn’t able to provide any new suggestions, sometimes just being able to verbalize what you’re struggling with in your story can jumpstart the dormant ideas in your head. Saying everything out loud can be a miraculous cure to your writing woes.

Read books/watch films in the same genre

Sometimes if the juices just aren’t flowing you have to turn to works by other creators. If you’re writing a ghost story, read horror books or watch horror films. If you have a favorite horror book/film, go back and experience it again. As you consume these works, ask yourself a few questions: What makes this story good? What makes it bad? What’s the best part? What’s the worst part? Studying what other people have created in your desired genre can be extremely helpful. It may even be helpful to take notes about certain books/films to see if there’s anything that can spark an idea for your story. But remember, don’t plagiarize. Use other works as inspiration fuel, but don’t rip off the artists who created those works.

Some solutions to writer’s block may work for some people better than others, but you won’t know what will work for you until you try! For me, giving myself a deadline and brainstorming with people I’m close to have been the most effective, but maybe those ones aren’t the most effective for you. Try out some of these methods and let me know how it went. Also, are there any good tricks I missed? I’m curious what this list could be lacking.