Battle of the Block

I’m not a massive believer in writer’s block. I know that when I get stuck it’s my own silly fault. I’ve blocked myself.

Then again, I have been struggling with some copy recently that I’ve been putting off because I didn’t know what to say. As I see it, if I don’t know what I’m talking about my readers sure as hell won’t.

I discussed the main thrust of the story with everyone I came in contact with over the past month at length and it made sense. But when I went to write it I couldn’t do it. Is this a form of block?

Something seems to be going on in between the workings of the mind and writing what’s going on in there, down.

Block or not, it’s got something to do with being precious about every word – something I ignore well enough when I’m writing news when no word must be wasted. When writing features I sometimes forget. It makes me recall something novelist Hanif Kureishi said in a two minute exchange we shared at the Cheltenham Literature Festival several years ago.

He said: “When you take your cap off your pen, it makes you stop and you see your mother. You consider, ‘what will mother think?”

I’m not conscious of doing that exactly. But I am concerned about what it is that gets in my way and freezes me now and again.My current ineffective way of dealing with it is to avoid writing for as long as possible. Left unattended in this way it risks growing into depression or mania, which in turn leads to writing something incredibly mediocre. And mediocrity is not to be celebrated.

Fellow writers - we must find a cure. Or is there one I’m not aware of?
Answers on a postcard please.