5 Reasons You’re Experiencing Writer’s Block

3. Your Expectations Are Too High

A mistake many novice writers make is in setting their sights too high, expecting perfection when they have yet to write a complete novel or screenplay. The best advice anyone can give inexperienced writers is to write a first draft as quickly as possible, as good books are not written, but rewritten and rewritten and rewritten. Once you have a first draft, you have a solid base on which to build, and all the “problems” you anticipated will work themselves out as you massage and craft your raw material.

What stops many writers midway is attempting to make the first draft the best they can write. Some believe it’s the way real writers write, which is generally not true; and some believe that perfecting each chapter will relieve them of the need to rewrite, which is also not true. Imposing this unreasonable need for perfection is bound to cause anxiety—and a great deal of frustration.

The more pressure you put on yourself, the higher your anxiety level rises and the more writing becomes a signal of danger, which transmits a message straight to your limbic system, triggering fight-or-flight reactions. When that happens, the limbic system stops forwarding messages to the cortex, which is where conscious thought, imagination, and creativity are generated. Instead, your amygdala releases stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, and soon, your heart rate is skyrocketing, your ability to feel emotionally safe enough to write is eroded, and your ability to concentrate vanishes. Who wants that? Who wants to re-create that? Small wonder that you are feeling a resistance to writing.

Instead of setting your sights too high, give yourself permission to write anything, on topic or off topic, meaningful or trite, useful or folly. The point is that by attaching so much importance to the work you’re about to do, you make it harder to get into the flow. Also, if your inner critic sticks her nose in (which often happens), tell her that her role is very important to you (and it is!) and that you will summon her when you have something worthy of her attention. That should divert her attention and free you to dive back into the writing pool.