How to Journal Your Way Out of Writer’s Block
There is one distinct moment when writing about our writing can support us as writers and artists: when we’re stuck and aren’t writing. We’ve all had it, good old fashioned writer’s block. You are not writing. You want to, you think. But you aren’t. Journaling and freewriting can help us gently and compassionately look at why not. So if you’re stuck, or the next time you are, grab your journal, a pen, and give yourself permission to reflect on your process.
I like to start this sort of excersise by stating the obvious, so let’s begin with this statement: I am not writing.
There: it’s out there.
For me, just admitting that to myself, fully and completely is always so loaded. It carries around a chorus of critics, aka Fear: “If you’re not writing you’re not a writer, so are you saying you're not a writer?” “You just don’t have the discipline. Don’t have what it takes.” “It was a shit idea anyway, that’s why you can’t write, you have shit ideas.” And so on and so forth ad infinitum.
Before we go on, we’re going to gently, kindly, ask our Fear to give us a moment. We have work to do.
So, you have your journal open, you’re looking at a fresh page, at the top of which is scrawled: I am not writing.
I want you to sit with that and instead of answering the question “why?”, journal instead on this: “Right now, what would it feel like to write?”. It’s easy to get caught up intellectualising why we may or may not be working on our draft, this allows us some space to explore how it feels to write in this moment.
Here’s how it unfolds in practice.
I went through this process recently since I haven’t written in months. I have a story I’m passionate about, characters who constantly keep me curious, I know the story needs telling and I’m quite confident I’m the one to damn well tell it. But I’m not writing.
So I asked myself, “Ok, so what am I imagining it would feel like to sit down and resume my draft?”
The answer was it felt heavy. Really really heavy. Like wading through some dark and unpleasant quagmire. It would have felt shit.
In the journal I continued, as gently as I could, “Ok, that’s not ideal and also unsurprising that I can’t bring myself into that space. Why might it feel so heavy?”
Why did it feel so heavy? The answer was simple: because that’s what the story is, dark and heavy. I realised this is not the type of story I would ever, and I mean EVER want to read as a novel. It’s about entrapment, it’s claustrophobic, the relationships are twisted, danger and insanity fill the air. I read slowly and when I pick up a book I know I’ll be in it for a long time, so the places I choose to spend my time in are, well, nice places to be. I read to escape, to be far away, to see how we lived before, to dream about how we might live in the future. I find it hard to pick up and commit to books set here and now, let alone ones where a griefsticken parent keeps their child hostage and when a bible salesman arrives the whole situation explodes. Not really my bedtime reading vibe.
But this story, this story! This trio! I’ve spent years with them. I need to know how it ends, but I can’t, and clearly won’t, face the slog to make it a novel. And apparently I wouldn’t buy it if it was finished.
And so, in that moment, in that reflection in my journal, it became a stage play.
Everything felt lighter. And everything felt possible again. Moving between mediums is important to me as a writer and a coach, so this felt completely natural and logical. For me, the story comes first, the means to tell it, second.
I’d journaled my way out of block and into action: it was achievable, but more importantly, it was something I actively would love to consume and experience. I can take the darkness in that measure, in fact, I relish it. I didn’t have to be working on a novel. Just because it’s the right way from some writers, for some stories, it doesn’t mean it has to be my way.
Indeed, when our creative process is stuck we are doing a dance in our heads, full of thinking traps and denial, it looks like this:
There is one ‘Right Way’, and only one ‘Right Way’ to continue my work
I have an unspoken resistance to that way
I don’t want to face the resistance because what if admitting I don't want to continue on the ‘Right Way’ means I’m not good enough? That I’m wrong? That I’m a failure?
I can assure you, from the bottom of my heart, you are not a failure. You are good enough. You have a right to tell your story exactly how you want to. That is your gift.
Being stuck is human, it’s part of the process. But when we give ourselves permission to politely decline the norms and boldly create our own, we can thrive. Acknowledging the emotion behind the stuckage is the first step to getting unstuck so you can continue on your unique, beautiful journey. I have every belief you can do this - and if you have pen and paper, you’re halfway there.
