Beat Writer’s Block with a Timer

Sometimes we come to the empty page and… nothing.  Perfectionism.  Anxiety.  Fear. Discouragement.  These little beasts, in my opinion, feed writer’s block.  But don’t dispair.  You are in good company. When asked about the most frightening thing he had ever encountered, novelist Ernest Hemingway said, “A blank sheet of paper.”  The truth is that every writer needs to find strategies to combat the fear of the blank page. 

Lately, a great tool for such a task has been a cooking timer.  Here are two strategies that always get me going:

To Combat Perfectionism: Set the timer for 15 minutes and do what Anne Lamont suggests in Bird by Bird.  Write a crappy intro as fast as you can.  But don’t stop writing until the timer goes off. By then, you probably won’t want to.  Intros, I have found, always change and evolve, so there’s no need to massage a thought, a sentence, or even a paragraph endlessly until it’s just right.

I must warn you. If perfectionism rules much of your life (as it has mine), launching into imperfect writing will make you feel like you’re freefalling.  Don’t quit. Respect the timer.  The feeling will subside and you won’t want to stop writing.

To Combat Anxiety, Fear, and Discouragement: First, imagine a writer friend who is plagued by these feelings.  Your job is to  encourage her because you know she has an important message to share with others and the ability to articulate it.  Now do what Barbara DeMarco-Barrett suggests in her book Pen on Fire.  Set the timer and write for fifteen minutes and dispel each and every one of her fears until she is ready to take on the pen again. 

Now, set the timer for another fifteen minutes, and use your renewed outlook to write a letter to yourself about the different ideas you want to write about and the reason the world needs to read what you have to say about them.  I have found that this strategy helps me readjust my perspective and gather the ideas that had been blown away by the wind of discouragement.

Maria Keckler
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