Blank (insert thoughts here)

There is nothing worse than sitting at your computer and staring at the blank page in front of you. It’s as if somehow the words will magically appear on the paper, morris dancing happily down the page in neat rows leaving you a perfect vision of literature. If life was like that we fellow bloggers, writers and other geniuses of literature would be dancing around victorious, hitting pinatas and loving life.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t share our love for well written literature (and pinatas for that matter), so how do we go about getting over the blank space in front of our eyes? For the last week or so, I have drafted blogs, deleted them, loss and found my confidence and ended up back at square one. Even writing this article, I am finding it hard to overcome the constant thoughts ‘maybe this isn’t right’ or ‘maybe I should be writing about something else’. Well, I don’t know about you guys but I have had quite enough of the writer’s block getting all the fun, so I’m going to try and give some advice and empathy on how we should tackle this external force (although it doesn’t include either light sabres or ouija boards).

Firstly, have a think about why you can’t write. It sounds a bit odd but when you start to think about why you can’t write there is normally a reason. For example, I am always wondering what people are going to think about my work, are they going to think talking about pinatas is a bout of genius or just a bout of bad writing. Everyone has there insecurities but sometimes you just have got to write and see (that should really be made into a T-shirt). Sometimes it can also be your subconsciousness stopping the words from shimmying onto the paper, maybe you have a bad day or have been dealing with something difficult which may suggest the reason why you can’t seem to write.

If you can’t think of anything that would be putting you off your writing, there is a reason for both experienced and new bloggers. For experienced bloggers, the dread that cloaks you when you feel like you have no fresh ideas must be difficult. Now I am still new to this but I am starting, oh so gradually, to get a structure of how my blogs will look, how long they will be, the medium of them (for example the type of literature – poetry, opinionated etc) and so on. therefore, if you ever struggle for ideas, simply write out your plan by asking these questions and really think about why you are blogging. Is it a particular hobby you enjoy? Perhaps you are a critic of new fashion and make up released? Whatever the reason, try to stick to it like a koala to a tree (this helps koalas keep cool btw) as then you have keep your blog focused.

This can work for most bloggers, however, if you are completely new to blogging i.e only done one or two blogs, it may be the fact that you worked so hard on your blog that you don’t want your next one to fall short of the mark. This was a big problem for me as I didn’t want to write something that wasn’t as good. I think if you struggle with this you just have to write another blog, work your socks off for it and, like my new T-shirt slogan, just write and see.

I hope this helps anyone suffering to the hands of the nemesis of literature that is the writer’s block as it is pretty horrible when you want to write but you can’t get the words on the paper (or the computer isn’t being telepathic enough to write your words for you). So next time you get over your writer’s block, kick back and celebrate with your piñata (I know you all want to) and love life.

Laura x