This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UCLA chapter.
As a Communications Major, a creative writing minor, and a writer for two media outlets, I find myself writing. A LOT. Sometimes people ask me where all my words come from, but the truth is sometimes they take a LONG time to come out. So, to help you with your potential lack of word flow, here are three of the ways I escape my writer’s block.
Scroll Your Camera Roll
I think one of the best ways to get inspiration is from my own life. Whether it’s a creative piece, a poem or even an educational article, scrolling through my Google Photos often jogs a thought I had at the time, an experience I want to share, or a lesson I learned that I think other people would benefit from. It’s a simple task, and in this day and age we have SO many photos to spark that interest.
Eavesdrop
On my first day of my short story fiction workshop last year, we were instructed to sit by people having a conversation and write down everything we heard. Ethical? Maybe not. Helpful? Definitely. We can also draw inspiration from OTHER people’s lives. The two main ways I use this technique is writing fiction stories and writing advice columns. If it’s an interesting story that I can make fun characters about, I dive into creating a backstory for them and a story emerges in no time. If they’re talking about problems they are having and I know the answer, or some insight on the answer, from dating to academic help, I know that there’s a potential audience in the advice I will give.
Read. A LOT.
You can’t make a basket if you don’t know what a basket is. Or some kind of saying. The jist is, if you want to be a good writer you need to read a lot. So with the specific type of writing you have to do, google some examples and read 10 of them. I do this with book reviews, essays, analytical writing and news articles. I read 10 examples which not only helps me nail down the structure of the writing, but might spark an idea in my mind of something it reminds me of, something I disagree with, etc.
These are three easy ways you can jog that writer’s block from anywhere. It doesn’t take any fancy ritual or any specific environment, you can do these things from basically anywhere. Get writing!