A Journaling Process to Eliminate Writer’s Block

A guest post by Mari L. McCarthy of CreateWriteNow.

Feeling blocked when you want to be creative is depressing. Writer’s block, or that emptiness that comes at the most inopportune times can become chronic and eventually fatal for your creative life if it is allowed to persist.

What is known as writer’s block, or feeling stumped when you sit down to write, gener­ally boils down to two challenges: personal obstacles and lack of inspiration.

It’s so easy to let the block rule you, and just give up, but it’s not satisfying. If you want to move toward your healthiest, happiest self, you must push through the resistance that comes up.

There’s a tool that unfailingly brings satisfaction in the crusade against that gaping void. It’s called journaling, and I’ve developed a neat set of actions using journaling to obliterate those troublesome blocks.

Invest in Your Creative Health

Just letting yourself take the time for some healing is a major challenge, I know. But to break through writer’s block, you’ll need to break into your schedule. These exercises are in 15 minute chunks, and easily fit into a day if you’re dedicated to the process.

The best use of this series is to do all the exercises in sequence, in one 60-minute session. This can serve as a simple warm-up to any writing project.

Remember, a journal is not for publication, or for showing to anyone at all unless you wish it.

All these exercises involve writing without stopping. Once you put pen to paper, keep it moving, even if you are not making sense. Don’t stop writing until the allotted time is up.

Clear Out the Crazycrap

Set your timer for ten minutes and write as a headline: What’s on my mind? Continue writing without taking your pen from the page until the timer sounds.

Then read over and consider what you wrote, for another five minutes. Circle words or phrases that seem to stand out.

Foster, as best you can, a solid equanimity towards your writing in these exercises. It is neither good nor bad, and it does not require your critique – or anyone else’s!

Consider Why

Set your timer for ten minutes and write as a headline: Why write? For you, this question may pertain to a writing project, or it may be referring to the writing you’re doing at the present moment. The point is to consider and freely write about the question Why? instead of the question What?

Spend about five minutes reading what you wrote and circling parts that stand out to you.

The Worst vs. the Best

We sometimes tend to dwell in our fears without giving equal time to our hopes. This is irrational.

Set your timer for five minutes and write as a headline: My Very Worst Fears.  Write without stopping about the worst case scenarios that may befall. You can refer to your life as a whole or any sub-set of it, such as writing about the worst that could happen if you don’t complete your current creative project.

Then re-set your timer for five minutes and write as a headline: My Highest Hopes. After writing continuously for five minutes, compare your two lists. If you had a chance at one of the best outcomes, is it worth taking the risk of one of the worst outcomes?

Get Inspired

A major source of writer’s block is trying to write without proper inspiration.

Set your timer for ten minutes and write as a headline: Inspiration around me. Look around the space where you are and identify points of inspiration from your immediate environment. Make a list of everything you see and sense that brings up some thought in your mind, no matter how silly or serious.

For another five minutes, look at your list and add a few more ideas.  Save these for future projects!

Don’t Stop, Go

If you’ve done these exercises all in one 60-minute session, simply keep going, moving straight on to your creative project with renewed vigor.

If you’re working more slowly, doing an exercise a day, continue to cycle through this process until it begins to happen reflexively for you. After a while, you’ll clear your mind, make room for why, give equal consideration to your fears and your hopes, and feel inspired by almost everything on a regular basis!

What do you do to bust through creative blocks?

By Mari L. McCarthy – Journal / Writing Therapist. Are you looking for more information on journaling and its therapeutic effects? Please visit http://www.CreateWriteNow.com. My trademarked program, Journaling for the Health of It! ™, helps my clients live healthier and happier lives. I recently published an interactive ebook, 53 Weekly Writing Retreats: How to Use Your Journal to Get Healthy Now. Please join Mari on Facebook and Twitter.

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