Writer’s block, also known as writer’s anxiety, is something everybody has suffered. Writer’s block is exactly what it sounds like. Countless hours of sitting while observing your surroundings hoping to find the smallest shred of inspiration. This minor psychological problem is commonly found in students simply because they are assigned countless amounts of writing assignments. Or when students are writing a new genre, or when the person remembers a rude, harsh critique that somebody had made to a previous paper. Writer’s block isn’t something that is innate, it comes from negative comments and hard times with writing.

There are seven stages of writer’s block. The first stage is being unable to create an idea. For some people, this stage is tremendously awful because it restricts them from writing anything. But for others, it at most takes a few minutes to overcome.

The second stage, and my most hated stage, is denial. You get ideas from several people including yourself, but you reject them the instant you think about it. The most interesting ideas are more likely to be abandoned rather than the bland and simple ideas because some may think they’re unoriginal or too hard to develop a story. For example, one would rather write about how chairs are the backbone to school rather than their summer vacation. But this is dependent on the person, whether they like to talk about their life or not.

The third stage occurs shortly after you have developed a writing story. It is when you cannot come up with a plot. You have the beginning and ending parts of the story made, but the middle is what stops you. This stage happened to me while writing my previous fictional story, Fly. I had already decided to write about how Flyguy has a boring life for the start. Then I would have him die a tragic death of having his wings being ripped off his skin and bleeding out. But what stumped me was that I couldn’t figure out how or when he would be ripped apart.

Based on research, stage four is considered to be an awful stage. The fourth stage is where you are around the end of your story, but you feel that something went wrong with the writing a few pages back so you have to restart from the point that you thought went wrong. When you first write the plot, you think it’s good and decent so you stick with it. You add more to it and find it more appealing. But as you move past it, you begin to think that it’s a stupid, pointless, or weird idea, which causes your mind to start disliking the idea. And the more you leave it there, the more you want to delete it. So right before you finish, you think about the part you don’t like, and delete it. Then you have basically restarted half of your paper because of a bad judgement. 

The next stage relates to the previous stage, but is slightly different. Stage five is where the story you are writing sounds amazing and very creative in your head. But the more the story develops and the more you write, you suddenly realize how idiotic and pointless the idea of the paper is. For example, when I was writing Fly, I thought the idea was very creative. But as I went on, I started realizing that this was a hard topic to write about and that it isn’t going to go very far. But with the help of edits from peers, I realized it wasn’t so bad after all.

The following stage is a simpler version of writer’s block. Stage six is where you are unable to come up with the right words and phrases to complete thoughts and sentences. You spend minutes sitting in front of a blank monitor screen or paper trying to finish the sentence. Maybe you’ll just write something down and move on, but then it will be hanging out in the back of your mind bothering you. So you keep trying to fix it and make it sound better. Coincidentally, I was going through Stage 6 while creating this paragraph. Weird, huh?

Stage seven is the paranoia and fear of rejection stage. You think that your piece isn’t well-written so you are afraid of the rude and harsh critiques and comments that might come your way. This is also known as inner critic. Some people may think that the paper you have written is good. But because you know what you could've fixed more than anyone else, you start to develop the thought that your paper wasn’t well written and could’ve been written better. Thus causing you to rewrite new parts or characters to the story, which should bring you back to square one. Basically everything you have written before was wasted time and thought.

Currently, I am going through writer’s block while writing in a different genre than my main type, which I find extremely ironic. I’m not going to lie; I have gone through this issue an abundant amount of times to know that it doesn’t get any easier, especially when the piece must meet a certain length or expectations.

Non-fiction isn’t my strong suit in writing because you will have to do research for your topic if it is informational. Personally, I prefer fiction as my writing style because I can make up whatever pleases me without having my information be wrong. And fiction tends to attract most people’s attention rather than non-fiction because of the unpredictable conflicts and resolutions. For example, one of my earlier writing pieces was about a caveman trying to find a friend, but ends up seeking retaliation on his rude coworkers. I found it easy to write because there is not a real story about a caveman getting revenge on his coworkers so I could come up with anything that I wanted. I could’ve had him quit and get a job at Starbucks, or have him move back in with his mother, but it wouldn’t matter anyway because it is a fictional piece.

Creativity has been a struggle for me as long as I can remember. I am always drawing blanks or asking people to give me random ideas when writing. When I try to combine the suggestions into one big idea, I can’t. To this day, I still can’t create any ideas that stand out without sitting, thinking about what to write about for at least an hour.
There are a few ways to conquer writer’s block. The most obvious choice is to walk away and do something else. This will reduce the stress building inside you. That is until you start writing again. Another way to make a writing idea is to read a book or watch television. This is a good way to brainstorm ideas because books and television give you endless ideas on what to write about. For example, you could write a fictional story about a WWII soldier from reading a book like The Boy Who Dared. Changing your environment is a smart idea because it brings you to new surroundings, giving you ideas to write about.

Writer’s block is an unpleasant subject that everybody has or will go through in their life. But to me, writer’s block is a dam; all the water is blocked off with nowhere to flow. My dam full of judgements and ideas are just waiting for a small crack to allow them pour out and express my opinions and thoughts. I think of writer’s block as a restriction towards the creative flow and imagination of a person. There are very simple ways to solve the thought process involving new environments, freewriting, and reading books. Hopefully, writer’s block will no longer be an issue for me.