Things to do when you’re stuck

Ten ideas for clearing mental blocks

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Over the summer, my writing ground to a halt. This happens often for me: I tend to work intensely for a few weeks, and then get stuck for reasons that seem entirely mysterious. In those moments, I feel a bit like a blocked pipe. Nothing can go in; nothing can come out.

I’m so used to this that I now fall back on a set of techniques for getting back into flow again, so I thought I’d share them with you today, for the next time you hit your buffers. It’s not always about the work… but it is sometimes deeply about the work.

Illustration: Paper Trident

Here are the 10 things I do when I get stuck.

1. Clear your desk
   This might sound overly literal, but while I’m deep into a project, things tend to pile up around me on my desk. Books, letters, receipts, Post-it notes, tea mugs… it all gets a little chaotic. When I get stuck, the first thing I do is to tidy up. Not only is the tidiness more restful, but the process really helps. I set aside an hour, look at each item in turn, and ask what I need to do with it. Will I actually read this book, or is it just haunting me? Where should I file this receipt? What’s the action that this letter represents? If I can’t do it immediately, it goes on my to-do list. Which leads me to…
   

2. Take a look all the things you’re trying to do
   My blocks often come when I’m trying to do too many things at once. I find that it helps to write them all down, and just to notice the impossibility of my ambitions. I ask myself what is actually a task (in which case, it goes on my to-do list), and what is a daydream? I think about the actual, real time I have, and what I can realistically do in it. I look for things to cut out, park for a while, or abandon altogether. Rather than thinking about this in negative terms, I ask myself: How can I make more space for my current project?
   

3. Acknowledge tiredness
   Creative work is mentally exhausting. It drains my energy, and it also empties out my head of everything I know. Getting tired is inevitable - sometimes, I just need a break for a week to get my groove back. In our current culture, we find it so hard to acknowledge something as simple and obvious as tiredness, and we try to conceal it even from ourselves. But there it is. Thinking is hard. Tiredness is not a moral failing. Rest. 
   

4. Switch projects
   Sometimes I need to work on something else for a while. This might be because I’ve got bored of the current project (which is totally normal, by the way), or because I haven’t quite formed an opinion about a certain topic, and so I need to think for a while longer. It might be because I’ve hit an emotional nerve in my story - sometimes entirely unexpected - and my psyche is saying ‘NOPE’ because it doesn’t feel safe. It makes absolutely no sense to push through and keep writing in any of these circumstances - your best-case scenario here is creating terrible work; your worst is that you come out feeling harmed.

   Instead, I always have a ‘spare’ project on the go, and I switch to that for a while. Sometimes it’s a novel that I’ve been trying to write for literally 10 years now, and which never quite works but I have fun trying. Sometimes I get some words down for what might be my next book, or the one after that. I find it refreshing, and after a couple of weeks (particularly with the dysfunctional novel), I start craving the existing project again. Back I go.
   

5. Find some non-verbal activities
   It’s possible to inundate yourself with words, even if you love them. Make sure that you have leisure activities in your life that happen outside of language, for example sport, craft, music, or movement. If the words are feeling stuck, let one of these take over for a while. I see this as letting a different kind of intelligence take the lead for a while; I’m allowing my brain to use its full potential. 

6. Go hunting for obstructions
   Sometimes I stall because I’ve hit a logical inconsistency in my story, or my argument becomes contradictory. I can’t always see it right away, but I just get a vague, itchy sense that something isn’t right. In this case, I spend time making a close reading of what I’ve already written, questioning everything, and I write about it in detail in my notebook. After a while, the problem usually shows itself - and it’s usually a point of departure from my usual plan. My book is changing, and I haven’t caught up yet. This is daunting, but I know from experience that it always, always leads to a better piece in the end. My work is pushing me towards greater originality and creativity. I just need to make time to listen. 

   
   A more difficult truth is that sometimes I realise that a project isn’t working at all, and I just can’t take it any further. I’d love to say this is rare, but it’s not - every writer I know has scrapped multiple projects, often after a lot of work. Be open to this possibility. Maybe you’ve lost your passion for the topic, or maybe the work you’ve done so far has shown that it’s less of an interesting subject than you assumed. Maybe things haven’t lined up in the way you hoped. It’s hard to face, but you can’t drag a dead project back into life by sheer will alone. You don’t have to make a big decision in one go though, so put it aside for a while and re-asses in a few months’ time. 
   

7. Do something
   One of the simplest ways to write is to do something and describe it. Sometimes, that’s all I need: just to deliberately gather some material. It doesn’t have to fit into the grander scheme of things right away, and in fact it’s easiest if you don’t worry about that bigger picture right away. Just keep it simple. Engage your curiosity. Visit a place, try out a technique, undertake a piece of research. Write down everything that happened, everything you learned. The most basic expression of this is simply to write down what happened in your day: just the facts, no embroidery, and no need to make it interesting. Prove to yourself that you can still produce words. 
   

8. Stop trying to be good
   Style is a major obstacle to writing. I don’t mean innate style - the natural voice of the writer - but instead the self-conscious seeking of a certain style, the belief that it has to sound a certain way in order to be good, or the idea that you have to sound clever enough to justify your existence. All of this makes it very hard to get any words onto the page in the first place. You can pre-edit yourself into oblivion if you’re not careful. When I feel this creeping in, I head off in the opposite direction: I’m going to write an absolutely terrible draft, I tell myself, and I will hate it. The thing is, I hate a lot of my first drafts anyway, but I know I can edit them into something better. The worst ones of all are always the ones when I tried too hard to sound like a writer. I give my present self full permission to be terrible, and leave it to my future self to deal with. 
   

9. Find some silence
   I don’t necessarily mean going on a silent retreat, although that would be a lovely thing. But doing something in the absence of any noise, like walking, swimming, or - one of my favourites - driving around in the car with the stereo turned off - opens up some space to think. Quite often, we’re still absorbing words even when we’re trying to rest, because we’re half-listening to the radio, or a podcast, or the TV. By deliberately cutting this out, you’re making room for your own thoughts again. It’s important not to force it, though - don’t try to think. Just let your mind wander for a while, and accept whatever comes up. I find that I often need a couple of hours of quiet before I can get back in touch with my thoughts at all.
   

10. Don’t believe in Writers’ Block
    I don’t mean that you’re not feeling stuck, but I think it’s harmful to buy into the idea of writers’ block as some kind of a specific disease. Yes, writers stall sometimes, but it happens for loads of different reasons, and it’s not permanent. Instead of taking on this big, scary label, take your stoppage as a sign that something’s going on. Get curious about how you’re working - are you finding a sustainable balance? Check in on your mental health - how are you feeling in general? Notice the other things going on in your life and forgive yourself if you can’t always give your work the extraordinary levels of effort you demand of yourself. Look after yourself, always. 

I now have a much tidier desk, a smaller reading pile, and a series of diary dates to visit interesting places, and I am (gratefully) back in flow again. I hope you can find the say path through. Go gently! 

All good wishes,

Katherine

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Thursday 3rd October

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