5 Reasons You’re Experiencing Writer’s Block

4. You Are Burned Out

It is quite possible that you’ve simply tapped yourself out. We all have our limits, be they physical, mental, emotional, and all of the aforementioned. Eventually your body, brain, or emotions are going to rebel and insist on downtime, which may come in the guise of what you may call writer’s block.

But keep this in mind: You aren’t blocked; you’re exhausted. Give yourself a few days to really rest. Lie on a sofa and watch movies, take long walks in the hour just before dusk, go out to dinner with friends, or take a mini-vacation somewhere restful. Do so with intention to give yourself—and your brain—a rest. No thinking about your novel for a week! In fact, no heavy thinking for a week. Lie back, have a margarita, and chill. Once you’re rested, you’ll likely find the desire to write has come roaring back.

Have you ever wondered why ideas seem to come easier when you’ve stopped concentrating and gone off to rest, shower, or mow the lawn? When you’re working on a task that requires higher level cognitive functioning, like writing, which requires intense concentration, your brain focuses like a laser on the task at hand, blocking out distractions and relying on existing neuronal connections. But when you break concentration and do something that doesn’t require focused cognitive functioning, your brain is more susceptible to distractions and thus “lets in” a broader range of information, which can lead to imagining more alternatives and making more diverse interpretations—fostering a “think outside the box” mentality and creating the milieu for an aha moment. Scientists have even found that when your brain is a little fuzzy from exertion, it’s a lot less efficient at remembering connections and thereby may be more open to new connections, new ideas, and new ways of thinking.