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What Is Writer's Block And How To Overcome It - SelfPublishedWhiz
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Nov 9, 2021
Writer’s block is the arch-nemesis that does not spare any writer, no matter which corner of the world you live in. However, you must not lose hope. I know what it takes to defeat this stubborn enemy and soon enough, you will too with these 15 Steps To Overcome Writer's Block. To put it formally, writer’s block is a state in which you find yourself unable to start writing something new, come up with ideas to carry a story forward or continue a piece of writing coherently. Although there is a dispute about whether this is an actual disorder or just a passing issue, there is no doubt that it can seriously slow your work down and cause you a lot of pain. Read the full Selfpublishedwhiz blog to learn about the science behind writer's block and how to overcome it: https://www.selfpublishedwhiz.com/writersblock
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0:00
So what is writer's block and how do you overcome it
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Well, put simply, writer's block is when you are just having a moment of no creativity
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So let's say maybe you're starting a new piece of work or you're trying to continue on
0:29
some of your story. You can't think of anything. Like your creativity is just out of the window
0:37
You can't think of anything. You can't write anything or you can't string together a coherent sentence
0:44
Everything just comes to nothing. So you might actually write a whole paragraph
0:49
but you know in your heart of hearts that this is not your best work
0:53
You're just typing at the keys and you look back on it and you're like, this is not good
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I don't want this in my book. And you just can't get past it
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And that often puts you off. It's kind of like a recurring thing
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So it's like a cycle. So once you feel or you know you're aware that you're having this writer's block
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you can't continue. You can't get past it because you know I'm having a mental block
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So you're telling yourself, I'm not good right now. I can't write this right now
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And often this happens to lots of people. This happens to write
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writing novels, children's book, children's books, poems. So when you're writing a rhyming book
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even, you might come up with the first few verses and then you just can't rhyme the words of
1:42
anything. Some people will then go to a service like master writer to help them move from that
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place. Or even if you're a musician and you just can't complete the song, you're just not
1:54
feeling creative, you have to get yourself in the mood. And it really stems down to create a
1:59
So that's what writer's block is. Now we're going to talk a bit about where it comes from and how you get over it
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So one of the things that causes writers block is actually the inner voice, your inner critic
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that is just telling you that you're not good enough. So you might have read a novel from Stephen King or you might have read Harry Potter and just thought
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how can a piece of work be so good and how can my work even measure up to it
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So you might just tell yourself that this isn't good. this isn't good enough, but what I'm writing is just not good enough. So what's the point
2:33
And then at that moment, you just get so discouraged that you don't even want to finish that piece of
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work. You might have already written 15,000 words and you don't want to continue and it just sits
2:44
on your computer as this unfinished piece of work. This happens so much. Another thing is the tendency
2:50
to procrastinate. So we all, we've all procrastinated in some way, shape, or form with something that
2:58
we're doing and us writers can do that a lot. So we'll start a piece of work is obviously we're not
3:03
going to start a piece of work and finish it in the same day unless we're truly inspired
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But you might start a piece of work and you might start procrastinating on finishing it and
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start a new project completely. And then that feeling that that cycle just continues. You're just
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going to keep procrastinating. You're never really going to get back to it. You're always going to
3:23
find something better to do. And that comes into the third point, which is just getting
3:28
distracted all of the time. It's so easy to get distracted when you're writing. Again, you could put on
3:35
well, I tend to write in silence. I tend to not put any music on or have any distraction in the
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background. And I tend to write when I feel creative. Like I do, I am definitely a person that gets
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distracted and starts loads of different side projects. But at the same time, when I am in the
3:52
creative mode, I'll go into that piece of work. It's often just a note on my iPad. And I'm
3:58
and I will just work. I'll work until that creativity, Fleer just goes away
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and I'll just have to leave it. And I've accepted that. That is my kind of writer's block
4:08
and that just means that I'm not in a creative enough mood
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to get this work done to the best of my ability. Another thing is just trying to be perfect
4:17
Being a perfectionist, I don't think it's a bad thing all the time
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but it is something that leads to procrastination. So your work is never going to be good enough
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you are your biggest critic and sometimes you'll desire perfection so much that you just won't get anything done
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And this can also come when you're editing your book. So you might have already written the book
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It's complete from cover to cover. You've written a whole novel of 60,000 words or you've written a children's book
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But when you go over it to edit it, you're just not happy with everything
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You're changing things constantly and it's never perfect. and you keep looking over it and the same thing happening you not happy with it And obviously we want our work to be the best it can be but this is something called hyper perfectionism I don know if that a true term or if that is
5:12
just something I'm putting together, but it seems like it's appropriate here. And that hyper-perfectionism
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just holds you back from actually releasing your work. So you might have done the writing
5:24
but again, your inner critic is telling you this could be better. And why
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while we can always do better, that holds us back because we need to put our work out to grow from it
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So even if it's not the best, the more you write, the more you publish, the better you get
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just as you would tell your child, if your child was having that same issue
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I know I tell my children this. If they are having an issue, they need to get past it
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They just have to get it done. My son who loves drawing, he will look at his picture in comparison to maybe the one on Art Hub for kids
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or just one in a book and he'll think, okay, my one doesn't look like that
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But if I show him how much he's improved since he's only four and a half
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since he was two years old, three years old, just three and a half to four and a half
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how much he's improved because he was drawing every day and, you know, you just get better and you
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learn, then he's inspired again. So you have to really appreciate your journey, appreciate your work and just get over that perfectionism
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thing. It's never going to be perfect. You just have to accept that. Another question people
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ask a lot is how long will writers block last or how long does it last? Because it can last for a week
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It can last a day. It can last a week. You're lucky if it does. It can last a month. It can last
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a year. And that's the tricky thing about it because you really don't want it to last a year
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especially if writing is your passion, if that's your means of income
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then you don't want it to last a year. If it's just on a particular piece of work
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I think it's completely okay to start something else and tackle that other thing when you feel more inspired
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Because maybe there's something in your life that's not clicking enough for you
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to have that aha moment where you go back and you make that piece of work for you
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because that has happened to me many times. I've started writing something
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I've actually written this relationship, self-help book, and it's not a book that should have taken me two years to make
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I think it's been, yeah, it's been two years. It's not a book that should have taken me two years to make
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It's not something I've prioritised, but it is something that I needed to experience and live through
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and talk to more people to get some of the parts of that book. So I've gone back and I've added new chapters
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I've added new information. I've changed information. And I think with a book like that or a fact, a factual book, a non-fiction book
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you do kind of just need that time to gather the information if you are doing it all yourself
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And sometimes it's the same with creativity. It's the same with a novel or, you know, and you might just need to travel
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you might need to just go somewhere and experience something that's just going to push you to that
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edge. So don't be too hard on yourself. It could last a week, it could last a month, it could
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last a year, but that's just kind of what writer's block is and you have to find ways to get over that
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So 15 tips to overcome writer's blog. If you are experiencing writer's block, if you've sat through
8:45
this at the beginning of this video, this is the part you're looking for and this
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This is the helpful part. So this is where I tell you things you can do to overcome that writer's block
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One, have a routine. Having a routine is one of the things that takes away the cognitive load of having to decide
9:05
what to do next. When you have a routine, you're basically functioning on autopilot
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So if you know, if you set aside time to say each day or every other day I'm going to
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write a thousand words, just a thousand words, it's easy enough to do
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you set yourself that routine, you're kind of running on autopilot and you just write no matter what
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So even if it turns out that you feel you're not really feeling that great about what you're writing
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you do the thousand words and you get used to that habit. That will help tremendously
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Number two, accept less than perfect vocabulary. Look, in the beginning, you might not have all the perfect words that fit what you want to say
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it just you might just have some basic words or find that you're reusing terms that's okay
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you'll come back to it especially if you're using when you're proofreading you're using
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something like grammarly grammarly will tell you you used this too much or try this you know there are things you can do once you actually written the content to go back and really spice it up and just rearrange things and change things
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and just change the way you've put things. Obviously, you don't want to get stuck on that and become too much of a perfectionist
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and just not, nothing's ever good enough. But again, once you're in the habit of writing
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you accept less than perfect vocabulary. You're on your way to getting yourself out of that whole of writer's block
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Three, do something other than writing. Just don't write. I know it sounds a bit backwards
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You're supposed to be writing and getting this thing done. But like I've said before
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sometimes you might just need to step away completely. If you could step away and do something else
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do something new, go on holiday, travel, just go for a drive and not think about writing
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That might help your creativity. No, that will help your creativity because you might get a whole different idea or perspective
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or something that was missing that you can now apply to your work
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Do exercise, meet with friends, cook a brand new dish, go on YouTube
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and find a nice vegan meal or something to try, do anything but writing and that might help take that pressure away
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Another thing that I like to do is let my mind wander
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So I'll just take a pen or my iPad, I do a lot of writing on my iPad
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or my laptop and I'll just start typing or writing, and just letting my mind wander
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I just let my mind wander. I write whatever comes to mind. It could be a song, it could be a poem
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I just write freely. It could just be a diary entry. It just doesn't have any format
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There's no pressure on it. And that might just unlock something in your brain
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to help you move on to the next step with your book. Except that your first draft might not be perfect
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Again, this comes into perfectionism. It might not be perfect. It probably won't be perfect
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you have to accept that. You have to just write it. You have to just get it done. So overthinking
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is this okay? Is this, I could word this better? Maybe you can, but you have to accept that that's
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your first draft. There is no shortcuts with these things. You will have to go over your book
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Several times you might need to pay somebody else to go over it. And that's their job to kind of
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check through things and see, not just looking for grammatical errors, but looking for
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where something is too wordy or unnecessary or something could be better
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If you get a decent editor, they'll do that. But that's your first draft
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It's not going to be perfect and it's just something you have to accept. And I myself find it hard to accept that because I'm definitely a perfectionist
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and I definitely suffer from a lot of these things. And this is why this list is very helpful for me to look over now and then
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If I am struggling with getting through something, I have to look over this and be like
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okay, this is where I'm at, this is what I could do. Switch to a different part of the story
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There is no rules with how this needs to go. If you've already mapped out how your story is supposed to be
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which you probably should have done, then you can just switch to a different character
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You might want to work on a character. You might want to build out a character
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build out a scene, just a completely different part of the book
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or start on a new chapter. And that might be just something fresh that you need
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It's all about finding something fresh, finding an area you can jump into and really put that energy into
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or something that's more inspiring than the topic that you've been on for the last few days or weeks
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This one might be a bit weird, but take a shower or take a bath
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Take a moment, really. It's kind of like, it's kind of like the holiday thing
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But showers are when I'm singing and coming up with things and thinking my voice
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sounds great. Shows are liberating and showers help. So again, as crazy it might seem on the list
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a shower can just be the thing to again, refresh your mind, refresh your perspective
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It can really just wake you up and showers are where people have aha moments. So don't not the
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shower, especially if you've just been sitting there writing for days and you've not
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showered, maybe it's time to shower and that's what the problem was
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Pacify your inner critic. Basically, just tell that person to shut up
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Tell your inner critic to shut up. That's it. Just tell your inner critic to shut up
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Another thing I find is changing your medium. So like I said, I will write with a pen and paper
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I will write on my iPad, I'll write on my laptop, and changing your medium could be the
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thing because even even writing on my phone I find that completely different to writing on my
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iPad um in my phone I can lay in my bed and I can just tap tap tap away and I can write tons of I can write tons I can write paragraphs upon paragraphs and it doesn seem like I written that much Until I put it on Microsoft Word and then bam there 2
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words there and it doesn't feel like it. And that's probably because when I'm typing, like when
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I'm on WhatsApp, I can type away. Like I can write hundreds of thousands of words in a back and
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forth exchange between me and my sister and it doesn't feel like I've done that. So maybe my mind just
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thinks that I'm just in entertainment mode. I'm just typing very naturally and there's no pressure
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So changing your medium, which is also kin to changing your environment. You can go and write in your
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car. You can go and right in the park. Well, we're in COVID. We're in lockdown. I don't know
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what the rules are with that. But change your, just change your environment and you might find some
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success that way. Get out of the mind of your protagonist. Maybe you've just spent a lot of
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in just focusing on your central protagonist. Maybe you need to focus on a brand new character
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or a different character's perspective or even just the character that is around the central protagonist a lot
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Maybe you just need to look at something from a fresh pair of eyes
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and that is not your main character's eyes. Practice creativity. I think creativity is something in the brain
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or triggers something in the brain that has an effect all round
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So if you are, you write a lot, you write a lot, obviously you probably write a lot
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Try painting, try drawing, try making music or just listening to music
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Try something else within the creative realm and it might spark something in your writing creativity
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Sometimes you just need to go back to the drawing board. If dots aren't connecting in your story, you might need to go back to the drawing board
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I know this sounds quite scary because you've kind of mapped everything out how you think it should
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be. So going back to the drawing board might mean changing a lot of things and more work in the
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future because you've just now changed a lot of things. But that might be the thing that you need
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to move on because you might realise, okay, this storyline doesn't, not that it doesn't make sense
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but it just, it's not carrying the story the way I want it to carry it. And if I go in this
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direction, I could carry it along a lot more fluidly. So sometimes that's what you need to do
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Go back to the drawing board. Forget about the reader for a while. I know that kind of goes against
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the whole idea of creating the book because you're creating it for the reader. But sometimes we're
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thinking too much about what the reader might think or feel and we really need to just get into
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the story ourselves and kind of be a bit selfish with it just in order to move it along. So I
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forgetting about the reader and just writing from your own, like your own creativity, your own
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desires, your own selfish wants for the story, that can definitely help. And the last thing I think
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is creating new problems for your character. So obviously adversity and whatnot brings the story
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along. That's what makes the story pop. But it's kind of the same as going back to the drawing
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board because you might have planned it out already the way you think it should be, but adding
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little things, little hiccups, little challenges for your characters to go through, that really
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could help the storyline along and you could end up making a better story than you even considered
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because now you've just created a whole new, kind of like a side story within the story
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but make sure you make it link back to the story otherwise you're just going to lose everybody
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completely. But that's it. Um, Ryers block is something that can be really detrimental to your writing
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career because again, if it lasts years, if it lost a long time, that's essentially just stopping you
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You're just not a writer anymore. You've just stopped. You've stopped and nobody wants to just
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completely stop. You can take breaks, but if this is your livelihood, if this is your means of
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income, you don't want to be getting stuck for super long periods of time. So
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you should do everything you can and your power to kind of get yourself out of that hole
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But that's it. I hope these tips were useful. If you found anything useful, please leave a comment
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Sorry, I'm out of breath. I'm heavily pregnant. So talking is a challenge for me right now
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But if you found this video useful, please leave a comment. If you have any more ideas for anybody that is
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experienced in RISE Block and might find this video, please drop your advice
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in the comments because it will help and I'll be sure to add your input to the blog post
20:02
about writer's block and how to overcome it again you can go and check that out on
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www.s self-published whiz.com that's self-published one word whizd.com peace
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