stop trying to be a good writer

greatness only occurs when you let go

So, you’re 1500 words into writing a story. You’ve smashed the opening. The characters are singing off the page. The plot is chugging along, and then…

BAM.

You’re stuck in creative quicksand, unable to move, and slowly getting dragged under.

You’ve got the dreaded WRITER’S BLOCK!

Panicked questions swirl around your head…

Where does the story go next?

Why did you start writing it in the first place?

Is it even good?

I’ve spent months in this stage: lost, embarrassed and ashamed. A writer who can’t write is like a poop-flavoured lollipop - useless and disgusting.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the kind of writer who vibes their way through a story or one that plans out every single beat - writer’s block can (and likely will) get you at some point.

There are plenty of tricks and techniques that try and shake you loose, but none of them addresses the deeper issue - what writer’s block actually is underneath the act of not writing.

Writer’s block is when you’ve lost control of the story, and you’re fucking terrified.

Writing for many of us (even if we don’t know it), is a way to control reality.

When we write, we can process the chaos of existence through a neat story structure. Rather than face our hopes and fears head-on, we can explore them through allegory and metaphor. Through stories, we can test the outcomes we want or get a taste of the ones we want to avoid.

Storytelling is a way to apply meaning to our existence and create order out of chaos. Those Greek ships didn’t just crash and sink - a mighty sea monster attacked them! A kid didn’t just die in the woods - Bigfoot got him! We’ve imagined gods and boogeymen to give meaning to tragedies; crafted afterlives so we never have to die.

But the truth is, we still don’t have control.

The universe is like a jigsaw puzzle where none of the pieces fit together. It’s a total mess, makes no sense, and the shopkeeper won’t refund you. The stories we create are the equivalent of grabbing a hammer and smashing the pieces together to vaguely resemble a flower or some shit.

The hero’s journey doesn’t actually exist in the real world; our lives aren’t a neat three-act structure. It’s a chaotic mess where beautiful and terrible things happen to us at random.

When you’re stuck on a story, it’s probably because it’s not behaving as you want. It’s not following your plan! Your perfectionism is keeping you stuck. You refuse to move the story forward unless you can guarantee it’s the right progression. And guess what? Perfectionism is just another way to try and apply control to the chaos.

What if you abandoned all hopes for this story and admit it’s a mess?

I don’t mean stop. I mean accept that you’ve lost control and just keep going.

Rather than swimming against the river, let it take you downstream. Roll with the chaos and discover what it has to show you. Who knows, maybe you’ll wash ashore and uncover a beautiful mecca full of charming villagers who feed you hog roast and massage your feet.

Or maybe they’re all cannibals.

You’ll never know until you accept your fate and let the chaos guide you.

Next time you’re stuck and struggling to decide where to take the story next - pick one of your terrible ideas and run with it. Don’t look back. Don’t stop. You can always delete it later.

Remember: the mission of your first draft is to simply finish it.

The lack of quality and ability is not your concern, not yet. That comes later. And here’s the secret: it’s way easier to improve your writing AFTER you’ve written it.

I’ll leave you with a quote from one of my favourite writers, Dan Harmon (creator of Community and Rick & Morty):

You stink. Prove it. It will go faster. And then, after you write something incredibly shitty in about six hours, it’s no problem making it better in passes, because in addition to being absolutely untalented, you are also a mean, petty CRITIC. You know how you suck and you know how everything sucks and when you see something that sucks, you know exactly how to fix it, because you’re an asshole. So that is my advice about getting unblocked.

Dan Harmon

lots of love,

jacob x