How do I get over my writer’s block?

A little look inside my brain when I'm writing

When I’m walking on the sidewalk, an idea for a blog post, drawing, article topic, or whatever else will pop into my head. They just come to me and I’ll picture what it’ll look like in my head. The way the paragraphs flow together, how the shapes overlap, where the clip will start and end. But if you asked me for an idea for something, I couldn't tell you a single word, even if the idea wasn’t even that good to begin with.

Being on the spot like that is difficult. It’s probably a confidence thing.

For this blog, I have a short list of ideas for posts that I can’t seem to get further off the to-do list, where they might rot away forever on there. It’s like there’s a fear of writing the wrong thing or not sounding poised enough, which is crazy because I’m only sharing the random thoughts in my head, not some extensive research paper I have to submit in school. I guess that’s just what writer’s block feels like sometimes.

So, how do you get over it?

I couldn’t even tell you myself. It could be that I don’t like being watched while I write, and I tend to sit in public places where someone could be sitting behind me minding their own business, but when they look up, I don’t want them to randomly read what’s on my screen. I can’t have people seeing the typos or the random notes I add a few lines down of what I need to write. I only want them to see the final product.

This is what stops me from writing in the first place and waiting for that perfect moment to get something down on the page, even when it’s not great. I think back to when I was writing for the campus newspaper a few years ago and sometimes an editor would come into the Google Doc while I was making changes, and it was nerve wracking to see that profile picture in the upper right corner as if they were watching me form the sentence (they definitely weren’t and just had the tab open in the background). 

When I start to write, most of the sentences are not in the structure they need to be in. I move clauses around or change a word to be less repetitive, whatever to make the sentence better. It’s a craft that I can never get on the first try, but I am limited to not even wanting to try because I don’t like seeing the trial and error before the end. 

As I mentioned above, it’s probably a confidence thing. I notice it in other aspects of my life besides just writing too.

When I was doing interviews for news internships, I knew they would always ask you to pitch some story ideas, so I would prepare some on a sticky note, but articulating them out loud seemed impossible in the moment so they didn’t come out as well as intended.

Or when I’m drawing and I can picture exactly what I want it to look like, but once I make that first stroke on the page, it completely gets away from me. I see how it’s not going to look as good as it did in my head, so I stop. Maybe it never would’ve looked as good as it did in my head, but maybe it did. I would never know without the confidence to try.

But maybe that’s just a perfectionist thing.

I don’t want these “things” to be the thing that’s holding me back from writing because all you can ever do to become a better writer is to write. And I want to use this blog as an avenue to practice my semi-formal writing. You’d think that nearly four years of a journalism education would help that, but it’s probably just my own shortcomings that’s preventing me from getting better or having the confidence to write.

So, how do you get over writer’s block? If you have any personal experience with this, I’d love to hear it and we can all share our writing process drawbacks and tips.

What’s brought me joy:

• TikTok Shop is taking on Amazon — one viral video at a time : NPR 

  This article is a bit old now, but once I read it, I felt validated by what I’ve been noticing on social media too. What really caught my eye was the section “‘I feel like I'm just watching commercials.’” I don’t use the actual TikTok app, but I hear about it constantly, and everything I watch on Instagram Reels are basically just reposted TikToks anyway. So, all this to say, is that you definitely see this phenomenon of always feeling advertised to on Instagram too. In movies and TV, there was a set ad break and if there was some product placement in the show, you’d just notice it, laugh it off, and move on with the story. But since people are watching less TV and spending more time scrolling on IG or TikTok (myself included), there are more opportunities to see someone who looks just like you and me talking about a product that has changed their everyday life. Just to find out they were promoting a product they dropship on TikTok shop or were sponsored by. Maybe that’s just the way my algorithm is set up on Instagram because I fit that typical 18-24 year old female category a lot of these videos are geared toward. Sometimes I don’t mind the ad-like videos, because I think of the ones that are promoting a small art shop and I love those because I like artsy content, but others are a little too much sometimes.

Thanks again, and I’ll see you soon,

Madison 💌