5 Steps to Overcome Writer’s Block

Writer’s block: the bane of authors, writers, and bloggers everywhere. But if you’re prepared to deal with it, writer’s block can be a temporary annoyance instead of an endless spiral. Get ready to defeat distractions, generate great ideas, and write the day away.

1. Shut down distractions

It’s hard to get started writing when you’re distracted. You can’t get rid of all distractions, but you can cope with them and get started writing on the right foot.

• Pick a time to write when few other people are around, or will be asking you for your attention. This might mean waking up early or going to a different room or a coffee shop.
• Find a time when you work most effectively. If you don’t have a choice about when to write, at least make yourself comfortable with a beverage or good chair.
• Close, or at least minimize, your browser windows or extra tabs.
• Have a pen and paper or calendar at hand. If you think of worries or to-dos that will distract you while you are writing, write down whatever you’re worried about so that you can stop thinking about it.
• Decide a time limit or set a timer. Instead of checking the clock every few minutes and wondering if it’s time to be done yet, decide how long you’ll work (and then decide how long your break will be).

As long as you have an action plan to avoid or deal with distractions as they arise, you can get started writing much faster.

2. Brainstorm

If you need help getting started generating ideas, just start brainstorming. Write down anything that you know is connected to your main topic, and then keep branching off to include related ideas. These ideas could become subtopics, blog posts, or even major themes or series.

You don’t have to be an expert in everything that you write about – gathering some resources on the topic and presenting them to your audience is a perfectly acceptable way to create a blog post. After all, just knowing that the topic exists and telling your readers about it might be just the level of introduction they need.

And don’t be afraid to cover duplicate content on your blog. A large number of your readers will not go back into your archives, so writing a post on a similar topic a week or month later is perfectly normal. Just try to put a different spin on it.

3. Research

If other writers have covered your subject (and chances are that they have), find books, blogs, or information products covering that subject and start looking at the headings, chapter titles, or sales pages. Do not plagiarize content, but do start thinking about content you have experience with that you could expand on.

Add these ideas to the list that you brainstormed, and see what ideas you came up with that were not covered by other writers.

4. Outline

Sometimes, the hardest thing is just getting started. Take some ideas that you brainstormed and lay them out in an outline. Decide which content should come first, and which wraps it up nicely. Some people only need to write the subheadings. Others jot down key points they want to touch on in each section.

Writing an outline also lets you double-check that the content you will be writing is at the right level for your audience. You don’t want to write your post to be too high-level or too low-level. It can even help if you decide what knowledge you are going to assume, and what you’re going to explain in detail.

5. Write for 30 seconds

This is the most important step. Just start writing. Don’t promise yourself much – just write whatever you can for thirty seconds. Or a minute. Or five minutes. Countless professional writers still set a timer and make themselves write without a filter for a certain amount of time. A blank page is intimidating, so just take one tiny step, which will make the next step that much easier.

If you don’t want to shut down your IM client, make an elaborate mind-map, research, or outline your post, you don’t need to. To write, the only thing you absolutely need to do is start writing. So go ahead!