A Reassessment of Writer's Block

Document open, the unassuming writer sits down. Ideas swim in their head, ready to materialise into prose. They lay their fingers upon the keyboard, yet they hesitate. How are you supposed to start writing? What is that hyper-specific word again? That syntax doesn’t feel right, does it? The ideas do not dissipate, but instead refuse to cooperate with the writer. The link between mind and page has been frayed, severed, and completely torn asunder. Frustration and anger ensue. The esteemed writer falls off their podium into the dark abyss from which no words can ever escape — the dark abyss of writer’s block. To crawl out of these depths appears a Sisyphean task, so anguish consumes the writer.

As students, we are notoriously prone to being afflicted by writer’s block. Certainly, many of my friends and peers have complained at least once (though a sizable chunk complains perpetually) that they are experiencing writer’s block. Especially for those of us in essay heavy courses, it can seem an inescapable foe. However, essays are not the only place writer’s block haunts us. It manifests in innumerable situations: writing an email, preparing speeches, organising pitches, typing messages to friends, and creating this very article. Having to do such things on a daily basis, with scarce breaks from more extensive assignments, it is no wonder that those in academia commonly meet mental roadblocks when writing. 

It is undeniable that suffering from writer’s block, especially on a recurrent basis, is one of the worst feelings that can befall a student. Deadlines inch ever closer and you’ve barely chipped away at your word count. Sentences feel unnatural and disjointed rather than flowing as they should. You feel like an utter failure who can barely string a coherent argument together.

Yet, though experiencing it firsthand is unbearable, I’d argue that writer’s block itself is not entirely a negative thing. Now, before I get any objections, I’d like to say: that a world without writer’s block would probably be a better world than the one we have. Unrestricted creativity and genius from our very best writers would be savoured by readers like ichor. However, if we could just endlessly churn out our best writing without difficulty, then ultimately everything we produce would be an amorphous slurry of words. There would be no such thing as a writer’s magnum opus, as the relative quality of their corpus is homogenised. Of course, there may be stylistic shifts from piece to piece, but without difficulty then there is no development. And what is the greatest difficulty to writers if not writer’s block? The cynic in me would jest that finding willing publishers is more difficult, yet how would publishers choose what they deem the best, if everything was the best it could be?

Writer’s block is ultimately an affirmation. It shares a truth, however unpleasant that truth may be to experience. It makes us recognise that writing is a conscious act. It is a difficult act. Though maybe not what you want to hear while you’ve still got essays to write, this recognition of difficulty is reassuring. If writing is difficult, then it is valuable. Algorithms and artificial intelligence can churn out mediocre essays, and the situation of the authentic writer can get ever more dire day by day. The perversion of the act of writing can continue, but this truth will never be perverted. A machine will not encounter writer’s block. A machine can not comprehend the difficulty of writing. Thus, a machine can never realise that writing, in its truest sense, is ultimately a human act — an act of difficulty, of frustration, of triumph.

Writer’s block ought to be reconsidered. It is not some boogeyman that is out to haunt the budding student. It is instead, just like any other negative experience, an opportunity to grow and develop. In the midst of the storm of frustration that it produces, it makes us realise the imperfect humanity of what we are toiling to achieve.

Illustration by Isabella Abbott