A topic I’d like to discuss today is writer’s block and how to deal with it. Admittedly, I’m writing this article partly for myself as someone who frequently experiences this phenomenon. After some reading and plenty of soul-searching, I’ve started to understand the underlying causes of this phenomenon, and more importantly, how to deal with them. “Writer’s block” is a general term we use to describe being stuck creatively. When we use it, there is often the implication that it is something that just suddenly happens to you, and the only solution is to wait it out. What I’ve realized is when we experience “writer’s block”, there is usually something psychologically deeper going on in our minds that is creating this problem. The bad news is that we are the ones who cause it; not anyone else. The good news is that although we got ourselves stuck, we can also get ourselves unstuck. Below are the four biggest underlying causes of writer’s block.
You don’t “have enough time”
One thing I slowly had to come to terms with was that I actually did have time for songwriting, and the truth was I wasn’t making it a priority. Instead, it was much easier to tell myself that I was too busy and didn’t have the time. There are only 24 hours in the day, and if they’re all filled up, you can’t just add three hours to the day for your writing. Telling myself that I didn’t have any time was a great way to avoid songwriting without feeling guilty about it.
How to deal with it
Set goals for yourself. If you want to write and release an album, you need to be setting monthly, weekly, and daily goals for yourself. Don’t worry about how fast you want to achieve this goal, whether it’s 6 months, a year, or even two years. What matters is creating a timeline and sticking to it, and turning the “I’ll do it tomorrow” into “I’ll have this finished by June 30th”.
Second, turn it into a habit. If you haven’t written anything in a while, the task of sitting down for a couple hours and trying to start a song from scratch can be daunting. This applies to any discipline, a common example being going to the gym regularly. What usually ends up happening is most people get a sudden wave of motivation, perhaps after watching a motivational talk or setting New Years resolutions, and vow to hit the gym for an hour a day, 7 days a week. They do this for a bit, but end up quitting and going back to their old ways. Why? Because going from being a couch potato to working out every day for an hour was too intense of a transition for them; it would be like spending an hour in a hot tub and then jumping into a ice cold pool immediately after.
When it comes to most disciplines such as learning a new language or practicing an instrument, it seems like a no-brainer to most that you will get the best results by working on it a bit every day rather than doing it on occasion in long sessions, so why doesn’t the same apply to our creative endeavours? Focus on consistency rather than occasional intensity.
You’re too distracted
The average human attention span nowadays is about 7 seconds—less than a goldfish. This is because we are surrounded by so many stimuli 24/7, it becomes difficult to tear ourselves away and allow ourselves to be alone with our thoughts and daydream, which is where the magic happens.
To deal with this problem, we need to go beyond just putting our phones in another room or using an app on our computers to block us from visiting distracting websites. The notifications going off on our devices create this impulsive need to check them, but a lot of the time, we end up picking up our phones and starting surfing them mindlessly without any prompt at all. The problem is not just that we have distracting stimuli around us; we have also become extremely distracted, and crave stimulation the second we feel a little bored.
How to deal with it
Turn off all your social media notifcations (or even better, delete all the social media apps from your phone) and only allow the essential notifications such as texts or phone calls to pass through. Trust me, you don’t need to know that someone liked your photo the instant they do it, and you don’t need to respond to people’s DMs right away. I make it clear to the people in my life that if they need to reach me about a time-sensitive manner, it must be via text or call.
Second, I recommend you engage in mindful activities such as meditation, reading, gardening, yoga, cooking, hiking, or any other activity that gets you away from screens. The purpose is to slow down, focus on one task at a time, increase your attention span, and tame your intense craving for constant stimulation. You may find it difficult to concentrate on the activity at first, and that’s perfectly normal. Make an intentional effort to do this activity every day, because doing it every once in a while won’t be enough.
Songwriting has become a chore
At some point, songwriting lost its magic. I remember in high school my favourite past-time was songwriting. As soon as I got home from school, I went straight to my bedroom to continue working on a song I was writing. I was overflowing with ideas, and all I could think about in class during the day were ideas for my songs. At some point along the way, that passion fizzled out, and writing felt like a chore.
This can happen for many reasons. Maybe you’ve been writing the same kind of music for too long, or you’re stuck in the same musical patterns and keep writing similar chord progressions and melodies. Another reason is that you’re burned out from writing too much, and nothing feels new or interesting any more.
How to deal with it
If we want to become passionate about songwriting again, we need to go back to what made us excited about it in the first place. Maybe there was a song or album that you loved so much that it inspired you to start writing. Go back and listen to it, and think about where you were in your life when you first discovered it. Think about all the feelings of curiosity and excitement running through you as you wrote your first song. Whatever it was that inspired you in the first place, go back to it and fully experience it again as if you were there.
Your expectations are too high
In my early songwriting days, even though my music was terrible and I knew it, that didn’t inhibit my sense of experimentation or enthusiasm for writing. However, as I progressed I began to use previous songs I had written as the yardstick for all my future creations; it had to be as good as that song (or better), otherwise I would scrap it. This became a problem in my songwriting sessions because when an idea popped into my head, I would instantly shut it down if it wasn’t amazing. As you might guess, this was not a very conducive mindset to my creative endeavours.
How to deal with it
There are a few ways we can deal with our hyper-critical inner dialogue. For one, if you’re writing music that’s similar to previous songs you’ve written (similar instrumentation, similar groove, similar chords/scales, etc.), get away from that and try something new. When you’re writing something new and different, it becomes harder to compare your current project to your previous work because they’re too different. In other words, you want to intentionally be comparing apples to oranges so it becomes more difficult for your inner critic to judge the song you’re writing right now.
Another strategy I use to shake off the judgmental mindset is to have a songwriting session where rather than sitting down to start and finish a song, I focus on brainstorming just one song element. For example, I might have a songwriting session dedicated only to coming up with song titles, or a session dedicated only to coming up with riff ideas. When I approach songwriting this way, my ideas flow much more freely because I don’t feel the internal pressure of having to commit to an idea and turn it a finished song. Did you write a lyrical idea that you’re not crazy about? No worries, just continue on to the next one. If you live or die by every idea that pops into your head, then of course you will be terrified to write anything down. By writing ideas down en masse with no filter, you are training yourself to focus on the process rather than the result, which ironically, usually produces better results.
Conclusion
There are plenty of ways you can find yourself stuck with writer’s block, but the important part is that you do something about it. Don’t fall victim to the mentality that writer’s block is just something that happens to you, and that the only solution is to wait for the inspiration to come. If you do this, you’ll find yourself waiting for the rest of your life.