How to Overcome Writer’s Block: A Lesson from Augusten Burroughs | Big Think

Is there such a thing as writer’s block? There are some writers who don’t have writer’s block, and there are some writers who definitely do have writer’s block.

In my experience, the solution, the cure for writer’s block, is to write about the writer’s block because you need to dissolve it. Writing can be like a corrosive acid. If you’re tense and you just don’t know why, and you’re just in a bad mood and you’re just angry – if you write about that feeling, what does it feel like? It feels like chopping at something made out of ice. It just feels very much like you will eventually get to why you’re angry. You’ll dissolve the feelings. You’ll corrode the sort of feelings around that anger and get to the reason why.

So with writer’s block, if you write about the writer’s block, you’ll understand what it’s about. I think, you know, for some writers, it’s like a symptom of your truest instincts, your very best nature trying to course-correct you, you know. Trying to tell you you really don’t want to go that way. It’s trying to sort of say wait, something isn’t right about what we’re doing here. It’s your sort of creative unconscious or subconscious way of saying to you stop, stop, stop.

There’s a reason why there’s a block. It’s just like a roadblock. The road is blocked for a reason; it’s, you know, usually not just arbitrarily blocked. A road is not usually blocked because someone decided, you know what, I think I’m going to block this road today. So you’ve got to kind of trust that that same basic sort of logic is incorporated within the cells of our own body. And we’re probably not going to experience writer’s block unless some better part of us, some more knowing aspect of us knows the bridge is out up ahead. That road goes the wrong way, you know.

So write about the writer’s block and figure out why you’re blocked. I was blocked on my last two books because I’m trying to write these two novels. I write one, I don’t like it. I write another one, it did not work. And I thought well, I can’t write anymore. I can’t write. I would sit down to write, and I would be, for the first time in my life, confronted with just blankness.

And then I would write something, and it would be just bad, no depth. And it was because I had decided what I was going to write next. I had already decided what I was going to write next, but inside the deepest part of me, it wanted to write something else. So there was sort of this like digging in of the heels, you know, where it was like no, I don’t want to write a novel right now.

You’ve said, you know, it’s almost like I’m going to write a novel because I promised my publisher I would write a novel. Not a good enough reason, you know. Not really. What’s important is you’ve got to write something great. You’ve got to write something that has to be written. You’ve got to write something that you can’t stop.

So writer’s block, you know, it’s like that’s – it’s something that I think is – it’s like physical pain. It’s your body telling you. Pay attention to this area. There might be something you need to look at here. The worst thing to do with writer’s block is kind of like the worst thing to do with back pain, you know. If you have back pain, you don’t want to stay in bed for the next five years. You need to stretch, you know. You need to begin physical therapy. You need to maybe do yoga or Pilates. You need to move.

With writer’s block, don’t stay away from the writing. Don’t put the writing aside and think well, I’ll wait until the writer’s block goes away or I’ll wait until the solution comes to me because that’s not how it works for a writer. The solution comes to us as we’re writing. It comes mid-sentence.

So for a writer, the answer, the solution to writer’s block is to write about the writer’s block. Why do you have it? Why are you not writing? Why does it suck? Really, why? Why do you think it should be? How should it be different? When I think about writing, what is it that I fee...