#45: How to Give In to Writer’s Block So Completely You Never Write Again

SATIRE

Dear Reader,

I assume the following is a completely universal experience that each and every one of you will relate to on a spiritual level. (Seriously, do we have any writers in the chat? Drop a comment below if you’re a writer too! Tell me how you deal with writer’s block. I’m in desperate need of a lifeboat.)

Maybe you took out a quarter million dollars in loans to study writing at a top university, structured your entire career around writing as your core skill set, and moved across the country to pursue writing in a different, much harder, more elusive, and selective capacity. Maybe you spend the majority of your waking moments writing, thinking about writing, and reading. Maybe those pursuits have started to leak into your sleeping hours as well. (How am I reading books in my dreams? Whose books are these?) Maybe you made a commitment to write six humor pieces per month, plus consistent standup material, not to mention blogs and scripts for freelance clients, and are steadily working on polishing several pilots while working on new pilot and feature ideas. Maybe, for some reason, you still feel compelled to journal. Maybe writing is your entire life. Maybe you are a WRITER after all and you should stop qualifying that title when people ask you what you do. And maybe, at this very moment, writing is an impossible task that will absolutely kill and eat you if you have to type another goddamn word.

Welcome to the writing life, baby! The block is back.

Luckily, I’ve been there, and I know just what to do to help you get out of it. Follow these steps and writer’s block will be the least of your worries.

1. Find a wall. Bang your head against it.

This will help knock loose the ideas in your noggin. Make sure to do the head banging in a standing position. Getting up and away from your desk will get your blood pumping and your body moving. It’s good to remember you’re a human being and not just an empty vessel for words that won’t come.

2. Scream, howl, or screech.

Now that you’ve remembered your humanity and infused your mental pain with some physical ailment, it’s time to revert even farther back, into your animal instinct. Let out your most primal call. Let it come from your soul and the throats of your ancestors — guttural, piercing, and worthy of a noise complaint in your apartment complex. This will probably unlock your throat chakra or something.

3. Belly up some brain bile.

Brainstorm. Word vomit. Idea map. Whatever you want to call it. Write some crap on a page in whatever way tickles your thinker. These idea chunks don’t need to make sense or be related. If you’re not completely hopeless, you’ll be able to make connections later. For now, just spew.

4. Stare into an abyss.

I understand not everyone has a giant sinkhole in their yard or whatever, so you’ll likely have to get creative with your abyss. The endless and crushing expanse of possibility is what we want to tap into here, so you can stare into anything that leads to something seemingly endless. For example, staring into a black TV screen. The TV is off. You can’t turn it on, but you know it could unlock a world of possibilities. It just won’t for you now. Staring into the night sky might work, but only if you’re in a place with lots of light pollution. Starry skies are too hopeful and might soothe you instead of making you feel like the writer’s blocked bozo you are. We’re going for existential crisis, not existential wonder. If you want to up your level of torture, stare into your open toilet bowl. The sewer systems, plumbing, and endless excretion of waste life necessitates are all abyss-y enough.

5. Embrace the block. Simply give up.

You’ve done all you can. You’ve exhausted all your options. You have, I hope, made yourself feel abundantly worse than when you were sitting staring at the mocking blank page. There’s no going back. You’ve lost the ability to write and ergo your entire identity. Greet this new life of nothingness in which you have no idea who you are.

What’s that? No? Oh, you’re being defiant now. All of a sudden you’ve found the words for what you want to say? Great. Prove it.

Can you tell I was fighting for my writerly life in this post? Blocks are bitches. But we persevere! Because what’s the other option? I truly don’t know!

Bye blockheads,

Ariana