Writer’s Block: The Ex Who Keeps Showing Up

I’m a silent voyeur in about a dozen Facebook groups for writers. I like seeing what torments fellow authors, especially the seasoned ones (it’s easy enough to guess the struggles of beginners). I also enjoy watching well-meaning people try to help each other out — sometimes with great advice, sometimes with absolute nonsense — and the way most of them rally around someone who’s struggling or celebrating a win.

Of course, there are mean people—it’s social media.

Of course, there are idiotic questions from people who have no business tackling a novel yet — and no, I don’t buy into the “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” philosophy, especially after witnessing the journalistic inquiry into whether Zelensky owns a goddamn suit.

And of course, there’s terrible, terrible advice. The kind delivered from a high horse with no legs to stand on, spouted by people who’ve never accomplished anything but feel the need to pontificate anyway. That’s the kind that makes me want to jump in and set the record straight because it does nothing but make writers feel bad about themselves and their process.

And nowhere does this self-righteous nonsense get as cocky or as clueless as it does when the topic is writer’s block.

They say:

• It isn’t real. It’s just an excuse for laziness.

• You don’t have writer’s block, you just lack discipline.

• Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block. If writing is your job, you sit down and do it, period.

• If you’re stuck, it just means you’re not a real writer.

• You’re overthinking or being a perfectionist. Just put words on the page and fix them later.

• The only way to break writer’s block is to write. No excuses.

• You must not actually enjoy writing if you’re avoiding it.

• It’s not writer’s block, it’s procrastination. Be honest with yourself.

• Writer’s block happens when you don’t outline properly. You should have planned better.

• If you had a real deadline and a contract, you’d find a way to write.

• Maybe you don’t want it badly enough.

• You don’t have writer’s block, you’re just writing the wrong story.

• Just free-write for ten minutes and you’ll be fine.

• Maybe you’re just not meant to be a writer if this is such a struggle for you.

Is Writer’s Block Real?

Short answer: YES. It’s a well-documented psychological phenomenon.

Writer’s block is the inability to start or keep on writing despite the overwhelming desire to do so. It’s caused by underlying psychological factors, and is a much different beast than procrastination or lack of discipline. It can happen to beginners and seasoned writers, as proven by my queen, Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, whose prose is so exquisite that I’d happily pay to read even her musings written down on toilet paper. She struggled to grace us with a new novel for a decade:

“There are expressions like ‘writer’s block’ I don’t like to use because I’m superstitious. But I had many years in which I felt cast out from my creative self, cast out from the part of me that imagines and creates; I just could not reach it. I could write nonfiction, that was fine. But that’s not what my heart wanted.”

(To read the whole interview, click here.)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie photographed by Jared Soares for The Guardian

Psychological Causes

Before we talk about how to deal with it, let’s look at five ways this little beast sneaks up on us to ruin our plans for a fruitful career. Disclaimer: I’ve been through all of them.

1. Fear of Failure or Criticism

No one wants to produce subpar work or be crucified by reviewers and literary critics, and I call bullshit on anyone who says that we shouldn’t care about what others think. If we didn’t care, we’d write for ourselves. We wouldn’t publish or try to sell.

When looking back at my own writing journey and the 12-year break I took between my second and third novel, I believe that this was the main culprit. I’d written two pieces of work that had great success in my minuscule neck of the woods, and I was terrified of no longer being able to measure up to them. Blogging was easier. Short stories were easier. So was writing plays and scripts. But a novel? Suddenly, it had become the hardest thing in the world. None of my ideas felt good enough, I was afraid of boring the reader, of repeating myself, or simply not coming up with a great story to tell. Of course, every single negative comment I ever heard about myself played on repeat in my mind whenever I sat down to write, and it took a lot of hard work on myself to overcome that.

2. Perfectionism

I’m not going to pester you with another treatise on how perfectionism is bad. You’ve heard it a million times already.

What I will say is that every writer worth their salt is an avid reader, and an avid reader will (hopefully sooner rather than later), stumble upon a few masterpieces. The more of those we read, the more our standards soar, and then it all turns into the small matter of wanting to measure up to them. This next confession will probably seem silly to you, but it was very real for me: I truly suffered for years because I can’t write like the greats I admire.

3. Lack of Motivation

Like I mentioned, I come from a very, very tiny neck of the woods. My whole country measures a little over 600.000 people. My books have had success around the Balkans due to four new countries speaking variants of the same language and calling it four different names. But expecting to live off of fiction in such a small market is pretty much the same as believing in the Wizard of Oz. The earnings are meager, you do it for the prestige and the communication with the reader, and you have to do a day job no matter how famous you might become. Then, if that day job happens to be great (like working on television was for me, or running a festival), and you also have a couple of kids along the way, finding the time and motivation to write can become difficult.

And I’m not just speaking about how busy one is. Writing requires a dedicated mind, and the mind sometimes gets sidetracked by, you know, life.

4. Lack of a Good Enough Idea

I will not, under any circumstance, try to force a subpar idea into becoming a masterpiece. Some ultra-disciplined writers can pull that off. I’m no such thing.

To write a novel, I need to become obsessed with the characters and the story. And if I don’t love them, there’s no way I’m spending a year or two in their company.

Not all ideas are good enough, and sometimes it takes a while to find something that’s going to make our heart sing.

5. Pressure

Whether it’s imposed by real deadlines and expectations, or self-imposed by our own inner critic, the pressure to perform is fantastic nesting ground for writers’ block. The more you pressure someone, the more they want to escape, and our mind is no different.

How to Overcome It

Write Whatever Comes Easier

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says that she found herself unable to write fiction, but had no trouble writing non-fiction.

I felt unable to write a novel, but found it easy to write plays and shorter forms.

You can write anything: poetry, prose, short form, long form, Substacks, aphorisms, insightful tweets, articles, journals. It’s all writing that’s keeping your blades sharp. It all counts.

You Do You

I, too, am impressed by authors who churn out a book per year or every two years, but I am not and cannot be one of them, nor am I the type of reader who enjoys reading the same author all the time.

If you wrote a novel every ten years and got to live until eighty, your collected works could still count six novels. That’s not a bad number at all. Is Arundhati Roy less of an author because she’s published only two novels? Or Harper Lee? Or Cervantes?

Yes, a writer writes. But there’s no rule as to what they have to write or how much of it to call themselves that. Even if I never wrote another novel again, no one could take away the ones I did write or the love people showed them. I did that. I accomplished that. And it’s mine forever.

Read Like Your Life Depends On It

The most idiotic thing I read in those Facebook groups is that people don’t want to read other authors but believe they can become great writers instead. Reading is the backbone of being a writer, and when you read a lot, little and big ideas will start to pop up, and words will pour out — if not in the format of a novel, then in all those other forms we already mentioned.

When You Do Sit Down to Write, Remember Who You Are

I kept reminding myself that I did not forget how to string words together into great sentences. No one stole my craft, my knowledge, my maturity, or my intellect. On the contrary, they all improved. It was just a matter of putting them to use.

Just Tell This One Story

This was what I kept reminding myself when I finally sat down to write Fathers Before Sons:

Kse, just tell this one story, this one situation. Tell it like it’s happening in your mind, like you’d tell a friend who was eager for a good anecdote. Nothing more, nothing less. Just this one. If it’s a paragraph, fine. If it’s a couple of pages, fine. What happened?

The Ex Who Keeps Showing Up

So yes, writer’s block is that ex who keeps showing up — uninvited and absolutely convinced you still have unfinished business even though you’re more than ready to move on. It has a lot to say and the ability to make you wonder if maybe, just maybe, it has a point.

But just like with the ex, you don’t have to engage. You don’t have to argue with it or justify yourself. You just have to remind yourself that someone talking trash doesn’t mean you suddenly forgot how to do what you were always able to do.

Writing isn’t something that left you. It’s always yours.

Even if you take breaks.

Even if you write slower than others.

Even if you’re busy.

Even if you have days where the words won’t come.