Undermine a Writer's Block

All the many factors that individually or in any combination unite to cause a temporary disruption in your creativity (Writer's Block) rest on the same substrata: living beings are attracted by pleasure and avoid pain. Blocks protect you from possibly hurting yourself. One small success (finishing an article or The Book, submitting a manuscript, querying an agent) might lead to subsequent agony (failure, rejection, more hard work).

Eureka!

Now here's something you can grapple with, rather than founder on the hidden shoals of protective devices of your own making. Even better, you don't need to go into psychoanalysis to discover exactly what kind of annoyance or suffering you're avoiding. Acknowledging and addressing this sub-basement of anti-creative monsters will be effective against any and all of them. It's not the old "Name it and Claim it!" You don't have to identify whether you really fear success, rejection (who doesn't?), coming up dry, or public speaking.

Realize that what's happening, in reality, is a basic, nonverbal human reaction to potential danger--fight or flight. You are fighting your urges to write and running from the pitfalls such activity. You are actually loving yourself as a living being. That's nice. It's good. If you are risking large failure left and right, we'd worry about you! What to do to undermine Writer's Blocks:

• recognize your humanity
• permit the self-care
• be grateful for it
• accept that some pain is inevitable
• know it won't come all at once
• realize you can cope