You might as well be wrestling with fresh air.

There is no tangible phenomenon of writers block.

It is a paralysis of cognition, a bundle of avoidant and negative thoughts, emotions and behaviours; a subtle, stealthy, self-sabotage.

For me, the two main culprits are:

Procrastination: Putting things off; saving them for later; waiting for more time, peace, quiet, space or for pigs to fly.

The first question to ask yourself is, ‘what is so hard/challenging/ painful about performing this task at this point in time?’ Answer yourself honestly. If it is something that you can tackle right now then go for it. People who have learned to successfully deal with life’s minutiae, have developed this habit of honesty. When we put something aside for later, we are actually wasting more time on the task than if we attend to it when it arises. Whether we like it or not, our brains are still mulling over whatever the problem (cause of the procrastination) is, and so our attention is distracted and the strength of our focus will be weakened. And the ‘problem’ will have grown larger and more powerful in our mind’s eye. That chapter that you left unfinished; the character sketch that’s not quite right; the plot sequence that’s not quite there…and will never be satisfactorily completed if you continue in this way. Take responsibility. Take action. Take a truth serum. If we identify something that we are just unable to achieve alone then the time has come to ask for help from others.

Perfectionism: This is when we are overly-critical about our own efforts and attainment; when we have passed the point of being reasonable about what we have, and can reasonably expect to achieve, given the circumstances or resources available at that time. We have effectively perched ourselves on the sharpest peak of pointlessness!

At this juncture the strength of our negative thinking has beaten all of our hopes and dreams into a sorry submission. So not only have we created more and scary work for ourselves through procrastination, we have also successfully beaten ourselves into a position of not being good/clever/Goddess-like enough to do anything about it!

And what’s more, whilst we have been so skilfully deconstructing our senses of self-worth and self-efficacy we have managed to create for ourselves a powerful and highly resistant self –defeating strategy, consisting of re-occurring loops of negative self-talk; irrational fear and general catastrophising. What an achievement! The dark matter has seeped into the empty space we left wide open for it.

So where do we go from here? How can we shift the imaginary block with which we’ve managed to obscure our own progress?

Some suggested strategies to beat the saboteurs:

· Lessen the intensity by switching your focus, allowing your brain the freedom to look a little wider afield for inspiration. Recent research on creativity has found that if feeling ‘stuck’ whilst pursuing a creative task such as writing, we can ‘free’ our minds by switching to a less cognitively- challenging task, such as household chores, walking dogs, gardening etc. Whilst doing so, our minds are still at work behind the scenes, trying to choose a setting, describe a scene or invent a plot twist. I regularly and seemingly unintentionally resolve issues and come up with new ideas for fiction writing in the shower; fact.

· Get some perspective. You can do this physically by hill-climbing if you feel so inclined; or metaphorically by looking at the same scene through the eyes of a different character. Tread the way in their shoes. Step back and take in a different aspect. Ask yourself how another interpretation might look or sound to others. Ask someone else’s opinion. The same block may not be apparent to them.

· Opt for an alternative scenario altogether. Switch to writing or researching another aspect of your current project, or concentrate on a different piece of work altogether.

· Allow yourself as many attempts as you need. See yourself as the pace setter. After all, only you are able to formulate the ideas, create the sentences and express the contents of your own mind. Others can only listen to, or read them, if you wish it to be so.

· If you are happy to share your work, allow some space in your mind for the opinions of others. Don’t be insulted by suggestions for improvement. See everything as essentially a work in progress. I’m confident in my belief that many established writers would change aspects of their earlier writings if they could, as with hindsight they undoubtedly see things differently. I believe that if your writing is a fair and honest reflection of your feelings or experiences at that moment, your work (if read) will be widely regarded at authentic and as such will stand the test of time. We can never be certain that our writing, amongst other things will be necessarily better in the future. We can only be assured that things will change.

· Writing is about creating something in the present, in all of its glory and state of the art. Critics may compare your work unfavourably with that of another at some point. Again that is only one moment in time. It will not last forever, unless you want it to and then it will probably lurk only in your memory! There will always be someone seemingly more successful or talented than you. There will always be someone less so. If you know that you have, with your best endeavours produced your finest work, your job is done and it is time to move on.

The 'block' in your path has been disarmed and will quickly disappear.

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