The Fuel to Write: Finding Inspiration in Periods of Writer’s Block

Writing can be a difficult task to pursue from time to time. Almost everyone has heard of “writer’s block,” and sometimes it strikes when you least want it to. Much like every writer has their own writing style, most have their own way of dealing with writer’s block. It’s an essential skill to develop in order to maintain your drive to write and create.

Thankfully for those facing writer’s block, we at The WriteLight Group have compiled this list of strategies to block out those tendencies of lacking creative productivity. While these may not directly inspire your own work, they will help you get out of a funk and write something, which gets the gears turning.

Journaling

Journaling is a simple and easy way to get back into the swing of things when inspiration is low. It’s a quick and effortless task one can do at the end of the day to recount what happened. Much like we’re inspired by other famous or up-and-coming writers and artists, we can be inspired by ourselves and our own experiences as well. Perhaps you had a bizarre encounter at the grocery store with someone—this could become much more than that, as a character in a fantasy setting; life imitates art, but art can imitate life too!

Write What You Read

You may have heard before that writing down what is said during a lecture or a video presentation helps with memory and information retention; the same can apply to what you read. If you read a chapter and summarize it briefly, it will help you remember it and set you on the path to write more since you’ve already started.

Write What You See

Describing a setting is an important element in fiction and even nonfiction works, such as a courtroom scene description. If you write down what is around you, that could easily become the basis for a story or at the very least provide a template for how to set up a setting’s description in an eventual piece.

Writing Within Social Media Post Limitations

It’s safe to way that nearly everyone uses social media these days in one form or another. While social media posts are usually brief, they can be descriptive and even thought-provoking, depending on a particular platform’s limitations. Try limiting yourself to only the number of characters that, say, a Twitter/X post allows. A great flash fiction story could emerge, or even the beginnings of a full novel series.

Blog Posts and Writing on Other Platforms

Not to toot our own horn, but blog posts are a great way to write freely and without concern for any particular structure. A blog can belong to a company and have a very strict set of rules and expectations, or it can belong to an individual who just says what they feel. Length limitations can also vary wildly, but if you host a blog, it’s your voice and what you want to say verbatim. The platform of a blog can be more exciting due to its internet-based presence compared to writing on a standard Word/Docs document and may reinvigorate you to write as much as you can and leave the editing for another time. Our next blog post is about editing, so stay tuned!