Try these tips to get past some of these common barriers.
Near my home is a low-level river crossing that we have to drive through to get into town. Most of the time, the crossing is safe and we all drive across barely even noticing the water…that is until it rains.
When it rains, we locals become obsessed with that river crossing. A lot of rain makes the crossing impassable. When this happens, the local emergency services crew puts up yellow and black wooden barriers to block the road. This is great while the river is flooding. After all, people get washed away by floodwaters and the barriers remind us that the world can be a dangerous place.
Once the water subsides, the crossing becomes safe again. However, often the crew is slow to remove the roadblocks and people get frustrated. And when they get frustrated, they find ways to drive around the barriers.
When it comes to my writing, I am the emergency services crew who puts up the barriers and forgets to take them down. I am also the driver who gets frustrated and tries to find a way around those obstacles when I can clearly see that it’s safe.
My brain puts up writing roadblocks because I feel unsafe. I’m scared. But my eyes see that the river is low and, barring a flash flood, I can drive through in safety. So, I often need to find ways around my writing barriers because I don’t want to be stranded and I don’t want to drive the long boring way into town.
Below are five of the writing roadblocks I face almost daily. Doesn’t matter if I’m trying to write fiction or non-fiction; the obstructions look the same.
Do you face these roadblocks as a writer? If you do, some of these tips may help you to navigate around those barriers too.
1. I can’t come up with an idea
Some writers say they have too many ideas. That is not me.
My Number One — Capital N, Capital O — problem is that I don’t know what to write about. I don’t feel like I have any original ideas. Everything’s already been written, right? All my ideas feel like cliches and I’m reluctant to add to the noise, so I sit behind the ‘no ideas’ barrier looking at the road and wondering how to move forward.
Recently, I’ve put my shoulder to the ‘no ideas’ barrier and managed to move it slightly. These three techniques have worked for me lately. Maybe they can help you push your barrier a bit too.
- Take notes. Write stuff down! I don’t know how many ideas I’ve lost by not writing them down. Read something interesting? Write a note about it. Interesting conversation? Write a note about it. Learn something new? Write notes about it. Carry a notebook or write on your phone. When you’re stuck, look through your notes and pick something that resonates with you today. (Thank you to David Perell for this tip.) Extra tip: Combine it with the random words suggestion below and look at it from a completely new perspective.
- Random word/phrase/sentence/picture generator. The internet is full of tools that will give you random things for free. One of my favourites is Random Word Generator. Sometimes when I’m stuck for an idea, I get 3 random words, think about the concepts behind those words — not just the words themselves — and try to combine those concepts in a unique way. Many words have more than one meaning or concept. Sometimes the lesser-known meaning creates something novel, especially when combined with words and concepts you wouldn’t normally put together.
- Listen to music. Every song has a story. But we all interpret that story in our own way. Listen closely to a song, to the lyrics, to the tempo, to the feelings it invokes. Write the story that you hear.
2. I can’t seem to start
Not being able to start means different things to different writers. Are you procrastinating or is there something else going on?
For me, the ‘can’t start’ barrier is about uncertainty. Where do I start? Where is it going? Is this story worth my time? The fog of the uncertainty roadblock makes it hard to see so I sit in my car idling behind the barrier reluctant to drive around because I can’t see what’s there.
These three techniques help me to clear some of that mist and edge forwards until I’m moving again.
- Understand why you procrastinate. Read Tim Urban’s excellent article on Why Procrastinators Procrastinate, then try some of the things in How to Beat Procrastination. I can’t say it any better than that.
- Write down your premise in one sentence. What is this story or article really about? Then expand that to a paragraph. Try to explain it to a friend. If you don’t know what you’re trying to say, you won’t be able to say it. Once you’re clear in your own mind what you’re trying to say, take the first step and start writing.
- Write the first scene/introduction as one dot point. Write the last scene/resolution as one dot point. Then fill in between with more dot points to take the story from the first to the last. Then turn those dot points into paragraphs or scenes. You don’t have to wait until all the points are connected. Write once you know what a particular bit’s about.
3. I can’t seem to finish
The ‘can’t finish’ barrier is akin to driving through the roadblock but catching it under your car. You’re trying to drive forward, but dragging this heavy foreign object with you impedes your progress.
Writers have problems with different parts of their stories: beginnings, middles, and ends. Some people drag that barrier further than others.
If you lose interest in a story or get stuck, there may be something inherently wrong with the undercarriage of your story. Your brain knows that something’s not quite right but it can’t quite put your finger on it so it halts progress.
To dislodge that hindrance, you could try one of these clearance methods.
- Go back to your one-sentence premise and compare it with what you’ve written. If it’s off track, then either shift it back or rethink your premise. What you think your message is at the start often changes as you write. In fiction, characters take over as they develop their own personalities and they can influence which road your story takes. You may find some of the earlier scenes don’t work anymore, so don’t be afraid to rewrite them or cut them. In non-fiction, as you fill in the blanks you often realise what you’re actually saying is not what you set out to say. Don’t be afraid to change direction or adjust your premise if your story isn’t melding with your original outline or plan.
- Write dot points instead of full scenes. Then expand those dot points out into sentences, then paragraphs, then full scenes. A single dot point can clarify what you’re trying to say, then you can build off that.
- Be prepared to put that story aside and revisit it later. Not every story or article is going to make it. Rather than sitting there beating yourself up over it, put it aside and work on something else. Take your mind off it and you may be surprised when the answer unexpectedly appears and you’re motivated again. That’s when you take the story out and keep writing it.
4. I’m scared of feedback. I feel like an imposter.
Fear of feedback goes hand in hand with imposter syndrome and the ‘feedback/imposter’ barrier can be one of the hardest to budge. Trust me, I’m still pushing on this one. It moves a bit every now and then, but it’s tough.
‘What if people say my writing sucks?’
‘I’m not a published author, why should anyone listen to me?’
‘Someone will find out that I’m a fraud, that I’m winging it and don’t really know what I’m talking about.’
Guess what? No one will notice because they have their own problems to deal with.
Not everyone will like what you write and that’s ok. I’m sure you don’t like everything else that’s ever been written either.
Just because you’re not an official member of the emergency services crew, doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to move this barrier. The people that come through after you will silently thank you for moving it.
Give one or all of these things a try.
- Write something, anything, and put it out there. Doesn’t matter where. Doesn’t matter how short or how long it is. Write 280 characters and tweet it. Write some words to go with a picture and put it on Instagram or Facebook. Write a short story and put it on Wattpad. Hold your breath and hit submit or publish. The more you publish, the easier it becomes. Get into the habit of putting something out there regularly.
- Start a free personal blog and practice publishing stories on it. When you create a blog site, no one will know unless you tell them. Publishing words when you’re pretty sure no one will read them is way less scary than putting them where lots of people hang out. Sure, the odd person will stumble across your site but they’ll most likely be like you, trying to gain confidence in their own writing. Start with a free WordPress site so you’ve got nothing to lose.
- Enter a competition or a challenge. There are plenty of writing competitions and challenges out there and many of them are free to enter. Try a short story (Reedsy has a weekly short story competition that pays $50 to the winner). Go with a piece of flash fiction (Writers’ HQ has a weekly Flash Face Off Challenge). As you continue to not win, look at the stories that do win and compare them to what you wrote. The more you write, the better you’ll get and the more confidence you’ll have in yourself.
5. I can’t find time to write
Some people say they write everywhere. Whenever they have a few spare minutes they whip out their notebook or piece of paper or phone and jot down some words.
I can’t do that. It takes me too long to get into the writing headspace so five minutes or ten minutes or even twenty minutes is not going to do it for me.
I work on a computer for eight hours a day at my day job. The last thing I want to do is come home and sit in front of another computer. After work, all I want to do is borrow someone else’s imagination by watching a movie or TV show or reading a book.
The ‘can’t find time’ barrier is very much a personal barrier that’s been put there especially for you. You will need to think about this one to find a way to shove it out of the way. You’re the only one who knows what you do every day. Remember: You don’t have to write every day.
One of these things might work for you.
- Mark time in your calendar and stick to it. You’re not a failure if you only write for an hour or even thirty minutes once a week. If you’re putting words on a page, you’re writing. Find the time that works for you and treat it as sacred. Let your family or roommates or whoever know that this is your time and make them leave you alone. Leave your phone in another room. Don’t answer it if it rings. Don’t check social media. Get into a routine and it will become easier and faster to get into the zone each time.
- Keep an activity journal. For a few days or a week, write down everything you do during the day. List it all. Every single thing. Five minutes checking Twitter. Thirty minutes talking to friends in the café. One hour talking to your mother on the phone. This works like a food diary — you don’t realise what you’re actually doing until you see it in front of you. Once you’ve done that, you may be able to see where you could fit some writing time in.
- Impose a real deadline with real consequences. Whenever I have a deadline imposed by someone else, I always meet it. For me, accountability = motivation. An arbitrary deadline that I’ve given myself, with no real consequences, might as well never be made. Meet that competition deadline. Tell a friend or family member about your goal and ask them to hold you to it. Commit to publishing one article every week and make sure your mother asks you where it is if it’s not there on time. Ask your partner to take you to a nice restaurant, but only if you prove that you’ve written your five hundred words every day for five days straight if that’s what your goal is.
People around me write every day. Every. Single. Day. My daughter writes three chapters of her novel every day and finishes a whole novel in one month. I look back on the last twelve months and wonder what happened. Where are the words? They’re not in my head but they’re not on the page either.
I’m tired of standing behind these barriers, seeing the safe river crossing, and waiting for someone else to remove the roadblocks. So I’m taking a stand and putting my back into pushing them out of my way.
The tips above are just a selection of things that sometimes work for me when I’m shoving hard on those roadblocks. Different writers will find that different things work for them.
I hope these tips are some help in your own writing endeavours. Just remember, you are not alone and don’t give up.
