Writing tips for authors Writer's block as an opportunity

The opportunity of self-organization: hills instead of mountains

Where do writer’s block come from? Because there are no more topics? Because as an author, you no longer have an opinion? I have the impression that there are many underlying reasons for writer’s block.

Writer’s blocks can arise when you feel like you are standing at the base of a mountain. Mountains are huge, and when we are standing right in front of them, we cannot even see the top – who is to say whether the mountain is not much higher than I think? As a result, you feel small and do not dare to start the ascent – and if you do not start, you will never arrive.

The strategy against this is quite simple: small steps. You simply divide the mountain into several hills – they seem surmountable without having to make excessive efforts. These hills can be of very different types:

• Brainstorming for the important content – what is essential for the article, and what is a side issue?
• Creating an outline with the central arguments, a “structure hill”, so to speak – this can go as far as asking yourself for each paragraph what function it should fulfill in the overall context
• Breaking down the overall task of “writing a new article” into small chunks – tasks such as “find the ten most important keywords that describe the article” or “think of a compelling headline” are easier to tackle because the goal is clear and the effort required can be estimated

So it is about dividing a topic into smaller units that are easier to work through. Once you have done that, writing often almost takes care of itself. You have a clear goal for the article and each paragraph, and at the same time an objective measure of the progress you have already made in your writing project and whether a text really fulfills your vision. This aspect is particularly important if you are affected by another cause of writer’s block: higher and higher, faster and faster, further and further.

Opportunity anti-perfectionism: regulate demands

Perfectionism and writer’s block go hand in hand. The more important an author’s own performance is to them, the greater the risk of falling into the writer’s block spiral: I really want to deliver good texts, but what I write does not seem good enough to me. This creates pressure and demotivates. So I want to do better – more pressure. The more I try, the faster the spiral turns. In the end, I start over and over again, immediately discard my results, and never get to a finished post.

The only way to avoid this is to develop a new strategy – less pressure. Do something different, and above all: enjoy it. Another good tactic is to write something that is deliberately not perfect – a loose collection of thoughts that expresses your insecurity, or a list of questions that are on your mind right now. This makes you appear human, and if I am interested in you as an author, I want to be able to see you as a person – doubts, insecurities and questions are all part of that. Not least, this can also convince me of your expertise, because great competence often shows itself in someone’s ability to ask the right questions.

(image: wohin.jpg alt: Two signs point in confusing directions.

Writing blocks are an opportunity to examine your own expectations and develop realistic expectations. The 37signals founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson have summarized this in a simple formula in their highly readable business book “Rework”: “Good Enough is Fine”. Not every post has to be a masterpiece – it is much more important to write something at all.

Flexibility as an opportunity: ways out of a lack of ideas

Finally, it may be that you experience a writer’s block when you simply cannot think of anything – even though there are plenty of topics, you cannot get any access to what you could actually do. I would like to share four ideas with you that have helped me time and again:

1. Plan content series: A very practical tip against writer’s block can be content series. They help you to constantly work on topics that are important to you, while at the same time positioning yourself more and more as an expert. In addition, topics help to reduce and structure content.
2. Curating content: Selecting, commenting on and recommending other people’s content to your own readers is a valuable task – always with attribution and a link, of course. This signposting function has a lot to do with good journalism and becomes all the more important the more choice there is. It also takes some of the pressure off an author that I mentioned earlier: it is perfectly okay to recommend other people’s content when you do not have a brilliant idea yourself.
3. Change perspective: Especially specialist authors occasionally have difficulties finding a new approach to their topic – they have the impression that everything has already been said in the numerous articles that have come before. It helps to consciously take a different perspective. Have you written for a specialist audience so far? Then ask yourself how you could explain the topic to a child. What do other professional groups think about a topic that affects them – for example, programmers, decision-makers, consumers? Incidentally, there is no reason not to try out a witty idea that comes from changing your perspective – for example, if you want to write about a software update and the source code could talk, what would it think about the latest changes to itself? Every now and then it is okay to be absurd.
4. Change the way you present information: Feel free to explore different forms of presentation – there is extensive literature on this, for example from journalism training or literary studies. Play around and experiment with the forms of presentation: Write a gloss on your subject area, or interview yourself. Such experiments are fun, motivate you and boost your creativity.

How do you see writer’s block and how do you deal with it? Do you have any tips?