Writer's Block is a Lying Bastard (And How We Beat It Into Submission)

The Great Wall of Nothing

So there you are, staring at a blank page like it personally insulted your mother. The cursor blinks mockingly. Your brain feels like it's been stuffed with cotton balls and regret. Welcome to writer's block, that special kind of creative hell that makes you question every life choice that led to this moment.

We've been there. Oh boy, have we been there. Tony once spent three weeks writing the same opening paragraph seventeen different ways, each one worse than the last. Charm had a month-long standoff with a chapter that ended with her threatening to delete the entire manuscript and become a professional dog walker instead.

Here's what nobody tells you about writer's block: it's not actually about the writing. It's about everything else

masquerading as a writing problem. Fear, perfectionism, burnout, that voice in your head that sounds suspiciously like your high school English teacher telling you your metaphors are "reaching."

The good news? Writer's block is a lying bastard, and we've learned how to call its bluff.

The Tricks That Actually Work (Not the Pinterest Bullshit)

Forget those cutesy "Just write 100 words a day!" posts. Sometimes you need to get mean with your block. Here's what actually works when your brain decides to go on strike:

Write absolute garbage on purpose. Seriously. Set a timer for ten minutes and write the worst possible version of your scene. Make your characters say ridiculous things. Have your villain slip on a banana peel. Give your love interest a speech impediment. The goal isn't good writing—it's breaking the spell that says everything has to be perfect.

Tony discovered this by accident when he got so frustrated with a fight scene that he made his protagonist defeat the monster by throwing glitter at it. Ridiculous? Absolutely. But it broke the dam, and by the end of the session, he'd written three pages of actual usable content.

Change your location. Not to some Instagram-worthy coffee shop with perfect lighting, but somewhere completely different from where you usually write. Charm wrote an entire chapter in her car in a Walmart parking lot because she was waiting for an oil change and got bored. Something about the change of scenery tricks your brain into thinking this is different work.

Write a letter to your character. Tell them why you're stuck. Complain about the plot hole that's eating your soul. Ask them what they want to happen next. Half the time, writer's block happens because we're trying to force our characters to do something they don't want to do, and they're staging a rebellion in our subconscious.

When Your Brain Betrays You

Sometimes writer's block isn't about the story—it's about life being a complete dumpster fire. You can't write romance when you're going through a breakup. You can't write adventure when you're stressed about paying rent. You can't write anything when your brain is using all its energy to convince you that everyone you've ever met secretly hates you.

We learned this the hard way during what we now call "The Great Creativity Drought of 2022." Nothing was working. Every technique felt fake. Every word felt forced. We were convinced we'd lost whatever tiny spark of talent we'd imagined we had.

Turns out, we were both dealing with major life stuff that we were trying to ignore by throwing ourselves into writing. Pro tip: your subconscious is smarter than you are, and it won't let you hide from real problems by pretending to be productive.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for writer's block is not write. Deal with the life stuff. Take a walk. Have the difficult conversation. Get some sleep. Your story will be there when you get back, and it'll probably be easier to write when you're not using it as an escape from reality.

The Nuclear Option (When Nothing Else Works)

When all else fails, we have one last trick that's saved us more times than we can count: write a different scene. Not the next scene in chronological order—any scene from anywhere in your book.

That conversation between your protagonist and their best friend that happens in chapter twenty? Write it now. The villain's dramatic backstory reveal? Go for it. The random tavern scene that you're not even sure belongs in the book?

Write the hell out of it.

Half the time, writing a completely different scene will either solve the problem you were stuck on or give you momentum to tackle it from a new angle. And if not? At least you wrote something, which is infinitely better than staring at a blank page while questioning your life choices.

Tony once got unstuck from a major plot problem by writing a scene of his characters arguing about pizza toppings. It was completely out of genre and clearly never made it into the final book, but it reminded him what their voices sounded like and how they related to each other. Sometimes you have to write around the problem to find your way through it.

The Truth About Writer's Block

Here's the thing that took us way too long to figure out: writer's block usually isn't about not knowing what to write. It's about being afraid of writing the wrong thing.

But here's an even bigger truth: there is no wrong thing. There are only first drafts, and first drafts are supposed to suck. That's literally their job. You can't edit a blank page, but you can fix bad writing.

So next time writer's block comes knocking, remember it's just fear wearing a disguise. Tell it to go to hell, write something terrible on purpose, and keep going. Your story is waiting on the other side of that wall of nothing, and it's probably better than you think.

Keep writing (even when it sucks),

Tony & Charm