Cure your writer's block with freestyle, non-judgemental writing

07.07.2015 4 min read

Since being a kid, and beginning to write diaries and my own little stories, I've had this same problem. I start to obsess over "what will others think about this" and then I get stuck with the writing. Yes, even with my diaries I have always used to worry about someone someday reading what I wrote and judge me for it. I have trust issues, obviously, but also I have performance anxiety. I get afraid that my writing isn't good enough. That contributes to my episodes of a terrible writer's block.

When you have a writer's block, what is the main reason for it? Is it that you don't have anything to write about, or is it really because you don't feel your thoughts are publishable? I mean, you probably could write about something, anything, but you don't feel like it's worth being published. Therefore my cure for writer's block is simple:

Write freely without judgement.

Unless you have some sort of a serious condition, you are most likely able to write something. What you write isn't necessarily something you'd want to publish. Perhaps it's too personal or just doesn't fit your usual style. In case you are hitting a blogger's block, a type of a writer's block, you are panicking over not having publishable blog articles. You have run out of ideas for blog posts, or even worse, you are feeling that your writing isn't worthy. This is likely due to expectations. For instance you think your readers expect certain type of articles by you, or you have read too many advice posts telling you what sort of blog posts you should be publishing. So you are stuck, inhibited by judgement. When you write freely without judgement it means you don't think if this writing is publishable, if it's too personal or not high quality enough. In order to unstuck yourself you must leave the judgement. You can write about anything. Write about your day, write about how you are feeling. You can even try and write about why you feel you are stuck, from where your writer's block is coming. These writings are not necessarily to be published. Although you might by an accident create something that can be published as is or become a base for another text, which is better quality or more fitting to your usual style, that's not the goal. The goal is to just write something, anything.

One of the methods is to write down your stream of consciousness. In it you will write anything that comes to your mind, without really stopping to think if it makes any sense. You will let your mind leap from a point to another and write it down. Don't think about the grammar, don't mind the typos. The results can be pretty funny to read, but it also gives your mind and writing certain freedom. The idea is not to inhibit the writing, but to let it flow freely. I have sometimes practiced this and it's a good way to unstuck your mind. Writing the stream of consciousness is similar to freestyle brainstorming. Any idea is a good idea, in this case any thought is good enough to be written. It can also work as a sort of a brainstorming session. While many of your free flowing thoughts are not suitable for publishing, or don't fit your blog or whatever you are writing, there could be some jewels there. Just don't get down if none of your stream of consciousness is publishable. As mentioned before, the point is not to try and create something to be published.

You can also take topics from other blogs, magazines, books or elsewhere and write about it. Again, not trying to create publishable writing, but to write something. I did this yesterday with a topic about how bragging can boost your career. I took my own take on the subject and wrote about it. I think the writing might actually become publishable, I just need to work on it a bit more. But what I wrote I wrote without judgement. I didn't try and have some foolproof data behind my writing. I didn't write it with the idea of being able to backup my claims. I wrote how I think bragging and taking credit affects you and affects the way others will see you. And why perhaps some people are more confident with taking credit about things, than others. I gave myself permit to write without thinking about how someone might think about my writing. When the thought about someone complaining about something I wrote popped my mind, I pushed it away. It wasn't relevant for this type of writing.

Becoming too self-conscious about your writing will create a block. In order to unstuck yourself, put the judgement away and let your writing flow without limitations. If you don't feel too shy about what you wrote during your free writing session, you can publish it. However more important is to write something without being concerned about the results and about what other's might think about it. While it might seem unproductive to "waste your time" in writing something unusable, it actually is good for you and good for your further writing efforts.

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