Summer 2021: Post 2 - Overcoming Writer's Block

All writers suffer from writer's block from time to time. Sometimes they are just procrastinating, and they call it writer's block to keep from dealing with it, but often, they really can't think of anything to write.

I have the same issue, but fortunately, I've learned some strategies for dealing with writer's block. For instance, I want to write a blog post along with the class each week. So what do I write? First, I do not want to write about your assigned post this week: the rhetorical situation of Doc1. Why? Because when a teacher speaks or writes about something in the class, then the conversation tends to stop. Students are very reluctant to contest anything a teacher says — as if we are speaking the Gospel — and I want you students to discuss the rhetorical situation without me dominating the conversation. So that's out.

What else can I write about?

Fortunately, I have lots of possibilities, and they all come from my rhetorical situation: I'm a teacher of college composition, my readers are students of college composition, our general shared subject is academic writing, and my text is this blog post. I can drill down from just about any of those four areas and come up with lots of things to write about. For instance, I know that your rough draft is due next week in time for our first peer review, so most of you are writing furiously to get several hundred words before then. I've looked at the papers you've shared with me, and a number of you haven't written much yet. Perhaps you don't know what to write. Perhaps you have writer's block. Well, I can say something about that. So I will, because I think it might help you. And there's one of the first strategies for dealing with writer's block: shifting away from thinking about content to thinking about what I want to do for my reader.

Josh Bernoff, the blogger that I follow, wrote a fine post entitled "The two words that (nearly) always cure writer's block" in which he talks about this shift as a technique for kickstarting your writing. He describes the method this way: 

Sit at your keyboard. Open a new document. Visualize somebody in your audience — somebody who really needs to hear what you have to say. 

Now type this: 

Look, stupid. 

Then start typing what comes into your mind next. What do they really need to hear? What do you want to unload? What do people just not understand? 

Keep going as long as you can. Build arguments. Make good points. Support your evidence. Show that stupid (actually, ignorant) person what you know, what they really need to know. 

Based on my experience, this will unblock the blocked. It doesn’t generate the most beautiful, well organized prose, but it does shake loose things worth saying.

Why does it work? Because you quit thinking so much about the content of your essay, and it's the content that likely has you frozen. Instead, you are now thinking about your reader, and a reader almost always tells you what you should write. Imagine you are sitting with a good friend who is also struggling with the same academic problem that afflicts you — say, procrastination. You know your friend procrastinates, and you know it affects their grades and makes them anxious. You'd like to help them, so what do you say?

You might help them understand why they procrastinate in the first place, but you also want to give them hope that they can deal with their own habits of procrastination. You might want to mention some specific methods and techniques that have been shown to work in managing procrastination. Those are all things that might help improve your friend's life. That's worth doing.

But what if you don't really know what causes procrastination? Then you haven't learned enough about the problem to be of any real benefit to your friend. So don't say anything — you'll probably just make it worse for them — and take time to learn something of real value that you can bring back to your friend. In other words, do some research.

Start your research by asking what you'd like to tell your friend. Want to tell them what causes procrastination? Then find out. And get the good stuff. Get information from the people who've done their own homework and know what they are talking about. Find the authoritative information that will be useful to your friend.

Take notes. Taking notes starts your writing, and it helps you remember more precisely what the experts are saying about procrastination. Now you're writing. Your essay is almost done.

So how did I overcome my brief paralysis about what to write in this post? By thinking about you, my readers. I've been teaching writing for more than forty years, so I have plenty of content. Content is seldom my problem. Rather, my problem is figuring out what value I can bring to my readers at this moment. I noted that some of you don't have much in your essays, so I decided to write about writer's block. Of course, some of you have already completed your essay, so this post doesn't address your immediate needs, but that's okay. You'll have writers' block soon enough. I hope you remember this post.