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by Steven Barnes

Years ago at a presentation at the UCLA Extension Writer's Program, I promised to help my students conquer writer's block once and for all. Afterward, another instructor approached me and said "Why did you tell people you could cure writer's block? It s not possible."

Poor woman. What she really meant was that SHE cannot break writer s block, which told me all I need to know about her career. In all likelihood that career began with great promise, perhaps garnering an award-winning poem or book followed by diminished production, and emotional anguish.

This needn't have happened. Regardless of what you may now think, with the correct tools and perspective you can not only end writer s block forever, but actually use its psychological mechanisms to your advantage!

First, let us define our problem in a useful fashion. Writer s block is the inability to:

1) Produce new text.
2) Edit and polish existing text
3) Finish projects on a reasonable schedule
4) Send those projects out for editorial judgment.
5) Continue sending them out until they are sold or published.

If we can accept these definitions, I'll continue by offering a perspective that can actually help you in every arena of your life.

"Writer s Block is merely a confusion of two different states of mind: The Flow state, where you produce new text, and the Editing state, where you evaluate and polish what you have written."

WB can be a career-killer simply because most of us have spent far more time reading than we have writing. We are more familiar with the finished work of the masters than with the messy reality of our own early drafts. As a result, when we sit down to create text, we measure our fledgling efforts against the polished, edited, published efforts of the world s great writers. Immediately, that "This is garbage!" voice goes off in your head, and Voila! A block is born.

It is said that a novice writer must produce a million words of garbage before finding her true voice. How in the world will you ever create such volume if you constantly judge every word? If only you could learn to turn that voice off, you might not only accelerate your growth as a writer, but learn a critical lesson about the structure of the human psyche.

The answer begins with the concept of "Flow." Flow is the psychological state where time seems to vanish, where you "fall into the page," where the rest of the world floats away as you concentrate. This is similar to the "hypnogogic" state experienced just prior to sleep, and during the first minutes of awakening. It is experienced in distance running, yoga, dancing (remember the lyrics to "Flashdance"? "She s moved into the danger zone, where the dancer becomes the dance") and, to be perfectly frank, it is experienced during sexual relations in the moments immediately prior to orgasm. Flow is the dissolution of the subject-object relationship sought by numerous esoteric schools of martial art and meditation.

Here are some suggestions to help cultivate this precious gift.

1) Alternate days (or work sessions) between flow and editing. If necessary, wear different hats, or sit in different chairs for each. NEVER DO BOTH IN THE SAME SESSION.

2) Set yourself a daily output that will carry you to your goal of one million words in less than 5 years. 1000 words a day will do it in three years, roughly comparable to the effort of earning an AA degree. Not too shabby!

3) Explore and specifically study flow state as a discipline. Do your internet searches and find a physical or mental activity (running, dancing, meditation, Tai Chi, yoga, etc.) to open a doorway to this inner world.

4) Listen to largo rhythm, sixty beat per minute string music. Vivaldi is perfect for this, and induces "Alpha" (flow) state rapidly and effectively. Stay away from music with lyrics, but soft jazz is also terrific.

5) Practice making mental pictures and writing down those images WITHOUT judging the quality of your descriptions. You want to enhance the connection between your deep consciousness and your typing or writing.

6) If you can t find a good meditation technique, just sit and "listen" to your own heartbeat for 15-30 minutes a day.

There are many other ideas, but these will get you started. The most important point is to learn to "turn off" or ignore the negative voices in your head. An artist who learns to do this on demand is on the way to integration of the deep levels of the unconscious and greater joy in the act of creation.
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About the Author
NY Times Best-selling author Steven Barnes has published over three million words of fiction, been nominated for Hugo and Nebula Awards, and wrote the Emmy-winning "A Stitch In Time" episode of the Outer Limits. He is the creator of the Lifewriting high performance system for writers. Get a free daily Lifewriting tip at: www.lifewriting.biz