Writer's block, an owner's guide: Writer’s block: “the pause that represses”

Another story that I came across during my own research. We’ll keep this short as it’s after midnight on Monday morning, and Monday’s my 12-hour day at the psychotherapy center in Encino. But it’s a good story for anyone interested in writer’s block.

Meryl Ray Cohen interviewed eight graduate students who had survived writer’s block with their doctoral dissertations. To her surprise, seven of them said they had never been blocked before. This made Cohen wonder if there was something specially challenging about dissertations.

Here’s what she decided after analyzing the interviews. Two things.

1) sometimes a writer is working productively, even when he’s not actually producing text. Some people write to find out what they want to say, while for others preparation comes before writing. If the writer doesn’t understand this, especially the fact that there is this quiet phase of developing ideas or “idea ripening,” he can wrongly believe he is “blocked.”

2) any pause in text production may “harden” into writer’s block if the writer feels anxious enough about it. Theres no need for that to happen.

These are important ideas. Once again it looks like writer’s block is something we create for ourselves. Does that mean it doesn’t exist? Yes and no. Like any other demon, if you believe in it you give it power, and then it exists as your own personal perfect antagonist.

Anyway, back to Cohen: she has some tips for dissertation writing, which might be useful to all of us in our larger projects.

1) don’t get blocked in the first place!… keep the task in perspective, and stayinvolved in leisure and other activities. And write regularly, at least four times a week. And stay involved with other people who know and understand what you are living with (this may be more appropriate for dissertations than for creative writing… but that’s a whole other conversation).

2) if you do get blocked, the experience is one of losing control. Cohen doesn’t want to give you directions, because that leaves you still not in charge. I agree with that; and I agree that her suggestions are only suggestions and that you must put together your own plan for working through block.

The suggestions are these:

(a) consider working for a short time each day but at least four days a week

(b) consider establishing continuity of working, with rituals or at least regular patterns

(c) if bad associations have developed, consider changing the facts that trigger them; moving your desk; working at different times of day; whatever.

(d) consider that it might be ok to set small goals such as 200 words a day, or even less - ten minutes a day - and to work up slowly; what really matters is that you’re in charge and that Anxiety isn’t.

Cohen must know something about productive writing; she finished her own dissertation and, if you have access to academic databases, here�s the reference:

Cohen, M. R. (1998). The pause that represses: The experience of working through writer’s block during the dissertation writing process. (Pub. No. AAT 9930434). Abstract retrieved on June 9, 2003, from ProQuest Digital Dissertations database.

Published on August 3, 2004 at 10:45 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/writers-block-the-pause-that-represses.html

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