Believe me, every literate person can write. But if you have to write something, and you just can’t, you may be experiencing a phenomenon called writer’s block.
Before I started to really like writing, I had no idea how to begin writing. Being a graduate student abroad was impossible when you didn’t or couldn’t write. One time, two days before my work was due, I was still sitting at my desk staring blankly at the computer monitor (which was of course blank, too). I never was a talkative person (unlike now when I teach!) and so I very often felt just tongue-tied when it came to writing–and in English!!! But as time passed and as I learned to write more, I found that the only way to solve writer’s block–the feeling of being unable to write anything or to think of anything to write about–is to start writing.
Thank goodness because of research and modern technology, people are aware of writer’s block and the fact that it can happen to anybody–even professional writers. Now you can get access to a lot of tools and advice on ways to help you get out of it. Go online and type “writer’s block,” and dozens of websites that offer to help you get rid of it will pop up. You can read about what it is, what its symptoms are, what possibly causes it, and what to do to get rid of it.*
But as simply as I can put it, guys–just start writing!
When I say “start writing,” I don’t mean for you to sit down and try to force yourself to write a well-organized grammatically-perfect paragraph or essay. That’s ridiculous given the situation at hand (that you are facing a huge writer’s block!). But if you don’t grab a pen and paper or turn on the computer and put your hands on the keyboard and start typing, you are just going to continue being blocked. There are things you can do by writing in the meantime before you get to that “perfect” paragraph or essay.** These things are techniques that help you generate ideas, forget your fear of writing, or just get you to forget that you are experiencing writer’s block.
Different techniques are good for different writers; you may need more ideas and so need to brainstorm, you may already have a lot of ideas and so need to organize them so that you can see “the big picture” before and as you write, or you may want to write about something else before you can really start work. Again, you can search online for pre-writing activities or go to the category in this blog called Generating Ideas (http://eflwriting4life.wordpress.com/category/generating-ideas) for posts about how to do it. Find the one that you like or would like to try, and start doing it right away. Remember, the longer you allow yourself to sit there staring at the paper or computer monitor blankly, the more time you waste and the more you only postpone the joy of “being in the stream” of writing!
Now start writing and having fun with it!
*Try http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/567/01 for a start if you don’t know where to begin. If you have an iPod or iPhone, there are even applications that help with your writing!
**Read the post called What is writing? at http://eflwriting4life.wordpress.com/2010/05/07/what-is-writing for an explanation about how writing works.
