I get stuck, all the time. Even though I write a lot, and I write about writing as well, I often feel stumped. There’s a particular paper that I am having a really hard time finishing, and I’ve been trying a few different techniques to get myself to complete it (I’ve written about all of them below, as my Twitter thread below indicates).
The one strategy that is almost always fail-safe and pretty much gets me out of a writing rut just about all the time is responding to a statement/argument. Nothing gets me writing faster than wanting to demonstrate how someone is wrong.
I found a really insightful paper on a topic I’m writing about, and then I found a couple of places where I disagreed with the author, so I used those points of disagreement to write a memorandum in response.
Everything would have been fine (and was!) until I got to THIS sentence. I’m like “WAIT A MINUTE! That’s a mis-representation and mis-interpretation of Szasz 2007!” This prompted me to start writing a memo to counter Ellis’ argument. I should note I have a memo on Szasz 2007. pic.twitter.com/Q7Kquefugz
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) September 18, 2019
Finding something I very, very strongly disagree with in an article totally breaks my writer’s block, because I feel compelled to write a counter-argument (which I do in the memo I just showed, cranked 250 words in minutes). Responding to an article/book claim helps as a prompt. pic.twitter.com/Km2XxZqKfB
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) September 18, 2019
– my @regionsezine on getting unstuck https://t.co/ElU8BeHwa8
– my post on dealing with The Blank Page https://t.co/7lx4bwymexMy best piece of advice when feeling stuck or not finding the right idea: find something that YOU FEEL THE NEED, URGENCY OR RAGE TO RESPOND TO. </fin>
— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) September 18, 2019
This strategy (to respond, critique or counter-argue a statement as a prompt to write) has served me well when feeling stuck. Hopefully it will be useful to others!
This is a wonderful post. Many thanks for posting it!