Writer’s Block Doesn’t Exist

Sensational Literary Magic

Photo by Ryan Snaadt on Unsplash

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

~

Truly and seriously: I do not buy the notion of Writer’s Block. So much so that I saved the word.doc this essay is originally based on as ‘WRITER’S BLOCK IS BULLSHIT.’ (Just to hammer home the point.)

Stephen King—a freak of nature when it comes to writing discipline and storytelling ability—in his 2000 classic, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft pulls no punches when it comes to this. Here’s another gem from the book:

“Words create sentences; sentences create paragraphs; sometimes paragraphs quicken and begin to breathe.”
― Stephen King, On Writing

Maybe I have little sympathy for those claiming injury by “Writer’s Block” because really I’ve never had it. Or, a more accurate way of saying it might be the following: “It” (whatever “it” exactly is) has shown up at my psychological door only to be kicked to the curb again and again and told to come back when it had something serious to say.

When I got sober in 2010, I started writing like a madman, like a literary psychopath, like a wild rebel kicking down the gates of Hell. For a lurid decade—17 to 27—I’d been a bareknuckle blackout drunk. During that time I tried to write. I started journaling in 2006, age 23, living in Pacific Beach in San Diego (the most unlikely place for a post-punk, pissed-off, nascent wannabe writer and intense old soul like me, but there I was). Around 2007 I began penning little anecdotal literary sketches and stories. I had no idea what I was doing. Back then I was a reader but not a voracious one. I was more interested in random sex, punk shows, cocaine and parties than reading. That said, it was around this time I dipped my toes into Kerouac’s On the Road. And it very literally changed my life.

In 2008—now 25 and living in San Francisco—I started the first draft of what would become my debut coming-of-age novel, The Crew. But between summer of 2008 and getting sober in late 2010 I completed only about half the book.

When I did finally hit bottom and quit drinking I finished the second half of that book in weeks. I suddenly had all this manic creative internal repressed energy and since I wasn’t boozing it all just sort of raged out of me in one glorious cacophony of explosive intention.

Of course it took between 2010 and 2024 to finally get that book in good enough shape to publish it, which I at last did.

From the moment I got sober until now I have never really run out of that creative energy. It’s like a gas tank that perpetually fills up on its own. I never have to take the literary “car” to the gas station; all I have to do is place my fingers on the faded black keyboard and do the deal.

Now, look. Like all writers, I have my moments, yes, where, somehow, I “run out” of things to say or put down on the page. Or my idea of some topic or some drawing of a particular character get’s blurry and smudged, and I have to pause and consider what to do.

But.

There’s a way out—or rather through—this literary conundrum. I call it writing my way into the story. (I probably unconsciously stole that from someone else way before my time.) The thing is: All you really have to do is write. As in write…something…anything. It doesn’t have to be The Exact Thing You’re Working On. Just put something down. You can even be like Jack Torrance in The Shining, writing “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” for 300 pages if you really, actually mean to.

But my guess is that, if you were to start writing that Shining mantra—or, for that matter, any other—you wouldn’t get as far as 300 pages before changing tack. Maybe half a page, a page, two. And then you would feel compelled to write something else. And that something else would begin, at some point, to morph into something else. If you work at this for a while, hacking as it were through the thick undergrowth of your psychological forest, you will, eventually, make it back to the trail you were on, the actual story you’re trying to work on.

Many new writers make the mistake of thinking that writing—this is especially true for fiction—is about thinking, is about the mind, is about the intellect. Mostly it’s not. At least not in the first draft stage. It’s really much more about feeling, vision, intuition. It’s much more physical than mental. You set your fingers on the keys and you just go. Where you’re going you may not always be certain, and that’s perfectly fine. Write into your story.

If you’re doing anything like a respectable job at this the characters, the story, the plot will, like a Siamese cat, begin to purr loudly in your ears. All you have to do from there is follow the yellow brick road.

Much of writing a novel—this is true of short fiction as well but to a lesser degree—is about one major thing: Simply finishing the first draft. Most people give up far before they reach the final page. Often this stems from imposter syndrome (I’m not really a writer; I’m not good enough; I don’t have “permission” to write this). But also from perfectionism: I have to get each and every word, every sentence, every paragraph, every page, every chapter absolutely perfect before moving on. But all these ideas and methods are doomed to failure.

Seventy-five percent of writing a novel (or nonfiction book) is editing, which is something you do after you’ve finished the first draft. The first draft is supposed to be FUN, folks! It’s like running a marathon on your own, without the clock, before doing the actual race with 500 people and being timed. Less pressure. This is what most writers live for: That six months, a year, two years (or in my case with my debut novel 15 years; I wrote a dozen other books during this time as well) of just going, following your own wild imagination and characters wherever they want to go.

You’ll have plenty of time to edit: Revise, remove, alter, cut, rewrite, etc. You’ll give the manuscript to friends and family to read early drafts; you’ll get criticism and feedback; you’ll go back to the drawing board. It’s like doing a clay sculpture: You start with just a formless blob of wet clay. Over time it gets molded and formed into a work of Art.

Don’t let your own precious ego, your fear, your imposter syndrome or your perfectionism (also ultimately spawning from fear) ruin the experience of pumping out a fun, even fast first draft. (When I say fast I mean six months, a year.) Create the engine of the car first; you’ll have plenty of time to rework that engine, add and subtract things, and create the external body, etc.

You have to be willing to write badly. You have to be willing to fail. You have to be willing to sound ridiculous on the page. None of it matters because in the beginning it’s only you seeing it. Failing and getting hip-deep into the literary mud is, in my opinion, part of the fun. And you should be having fun, at least with that first draft. If not, then maybe writing isn’t your thing as much as you think it is.

Have some humility about your writing, about your talent-level and where you’re at. You’re not Joan Didion, James Baldwin, Zadie Smith or Norman Mailer. You’re not Updike. Your first book isn’t going to be a masterpiece. And that’s fine. That’s good. Truth is probably none of your books—or mine—will ever be masterpieces. The idea is to put down your experience using your imagination and intuition as best as you can. And then reworking it. And then reworking it some more. On and on, ad infinitum until it feels done. (And then in a decade you’ll look back and say you see all the flaws in the published product. Just the way it is.)

I think for most people most of the time, saying you have Writer’s Block is a copout. You only think you do. Yes, maybe I am gaslighting you here. So what? Just try it. Try shifting away from your thinking mind and into your emotional feeling mind. Try thinking of your fingers on the keys as muscles, as extensions of your inner world come into biological display. (Like sensational literary magic.)

Let go of all the writing classes you took, the overpriced MFA you paid $100,000 for, the practical side of anything. Just let yourself go. Let your fingers dance. Think like the Zen Buddhists. There is no inherent self, no intrinsic “you,” no egoistic “I.” There’s just the blank white page, your holy vision, and the keys. See your way, fight your way into the goddamn story.

You can do it.