Writer's block : a psychological state or a real disease ?

Hello everyone,

Sorry for my absence as much on my blog as on my social media on instagram. I tried last week to write a blog post about a town that I love which is Bordeaux. But I couldn't write it simply because I had the writer's block. This means that I wanted to do this article but I couldn't because I didn't find the words to express my feelings and I was afraid of what you could think about my article and the way I was writing. So I took a break just to focus on something else. I stopped writing in English or doing every kind of things related to my blog just to come back with better ideas for this blog. This experience leads me to find the inspiration and that's why I am doing an article about the fear of the blank page.

Even though I am not a professional writer I can testify my disappointment when I wanted to write something but I couldn't find the better way to express it. So when I prepared this post I did some researches about the writer's block from the scientific viewpoint to the way to overcome this.

So even if many writers have to face this is there a scientific explanation or is it an excuse for some of them because they are just in lack of inspiration or too lazy to write something ? While I was searching some informations about a scientific way to explain that I came across a blog article which was informing me that a study has been done by Alice Flaherty a neurologist in 2006 about the hypergraphia which is about an uncontrollable compulsion to write. So you are going to tell me that I made a mistake because it is the complete opposite of what I am trying to explain but let me argue my theory. There is five lobes in the brain : the parietal lobe, the occipital lobe, the cerebellum lobe, the brain sterm, the temporal lobe and the frontal lobe.

This leads me to give you some key things to face the writer's block.

First of all I have to give you a definition of the writer's block because this word is often use without knowing what it involves. There is two words with a similar meaning but are often mistaken : writer's block and writer's anxiety. So writer's block is the inablility to produce a new work which means that you have the ideas but you don't find the words to express it properly. The writer's anxiety is more a psychological state which prevent you before even starting to have an idea having inspiration. Also this often happens to every kind of people not only writers and it is situational because it appears in some writing situation but not others.

So how to face these two issues that can't let you write the way you want ?

The first advice I am giving you is to be aware of what is making you anxious. You need to find the origin your fear to face it. Which leads me to my second advice to find solution for this anxiety to avoid it. For instance if you don't like writing without a deadline create one the feel more comfortable with your writing. On the opposite if you can't bear writing with a deadline make sure to start writing before someone asks you to do your essay. Also if you like working in group you can ask for support of your family or a colleagues that can help you with your writing. In addition because all of this is in great part psychological you have to recognize that writing isn't easy and to face the fact that it is a difficult process.You need to identify to strenghts of your writing this will put your ming in a positive state of mind. Finally you need to try new writing technic for example try toimagine that you are explaining a theory to someone or write a dialogue if you don't have the inspiration to write a text. Like this you can express the same idea and change the way to write it. And last advice read a lot this will improve your syntaxe and the way that you are writing.

I hope that this article has been useful in any case I loved doing it because it lets me explain why I wasn't very present this past week.

Have a nice week end !