We’ve all been there. You’ve just sat down at your desk after getting a coffee, organizing your paperwork, talking to every co-worker available and doing a lap around the block. You’ve been avoiding the dreaded digital white sheet of Microsoft Word paper. The one that you’re supposed to write that appeal on. But instead, you’ve been procrastinating because you have got a bad case of writers block.
Sound familiar?
Even though I produce of ton of written content for my blog and clients, I sometimes come up against a bad case of writer’s block. Usually, I feel like I don’t have anything interesting to say and then I start down a self-sabotaging path of thinking that I’m not a good writer at all.
Luckily over the last year, I’ve come across a couple of great strategies for getting past a bad case of writer’s block. Watch this week’s Storytelling Q & A to find out what I do.
In the video I mentioned two strategies that I use to work through writer’s block and also regularly stretch my writing muscles.
1. Morning Pages – this is from Julia Cameron’s book called The Artist’s Way. It’s a daily stream of consciousness exercise where you just write two pages by hand. It doesn’t matter what the content is, it’s just about sitting down and writing. Sometimes if I’m having a hard time coming up with what to write, I’ll write about why I feel like I’m struggling and often times that leads me to work through the writer’s block.
2. Regularly Find Inspiration – To be creative regularly, we need to stay connected to inspiration. In The Accidental Creative, Todd Henry suggests setting aside specific time during the week to find and engage with inspiration. I have an hour every Wednesday afternoon where all I do is look at examples of non-profit storytelling. This helps me to know what others are doing and also find inspiration for storytelling projects that I’m working on. There are many great tips from this book and I talked about them in a past episode of What I’m Reading.
