Ms. Gulitti
AP Lang/Comp
Name____________________
Period____________________
Combating Writer’s Block
Directions: Read the following suggestions from famous writers on how to deal with
writer’s block. Choose three that seem most appealing to you. On a separate sheet of
paper, explain the suggestions significance to you as a writer. Be prepared to share this in
class discussion.
1) “Force yourself to write non-stop for twenty or thirty minutes: no deletions, no
erasures, no pauses. If that doesn’t work, take a break. Take a walk. Pack up your writing
supplies and go someplace new. Sit in a coffee shop, find a cozy spot in a library, go to a
park. It often helps to do something entirely nonverbal, like making a collage or playing
music. And it always helps to remember that writer’s block is a widespread malady.”
–Nancy Hathaway
2) “When I feel dried-up I deal myself a few games of solitaire at my desk. I’ve been
doing it all my life. Sometimes I play 10 or 20 games, sometimes 40. Once, I played for
three straight days. The important thing is not to leave the work place.” –Richard
Condon
3) “Eat massive amounts of high-calorie food.” – Alice Kahn
4) “If you’re afraid you can’t write, the answer is to write. Every sentence you construct
adds weight to the balance pan. If you’re afraid of what other people will think of your
efforts, don’t show them until you write your way beyond your fear. If writing a book is
impossible, write a chapter. If writing a chapter is impossible, write a page. If writing a
page is impossible, write a paragraph. If writing a paragraph is impossible, write a
sentence. If writing even a sentence is impossible write a word and teach yourself
everything there is to know about that word and then write another, connected word and
see where their connection leads. A page a day is a book a year.” –Richard Rhodes
5) “The best thing is to write anything, anything at all that comes into your head, until
gradually there is a calm and creative day.” – Stephen Spender
6) “Copy out the first thirty pages of an obscure 19th century French novel and then carry
on with your own text. Later, go back and rewrite the first thirty pages. Tolstoy tried this
with Anna Karenina and it worked.” –Andrew Cockburn
7) “When I sit down in order to write, sometimes it’s there; sometimes it’s not. But that
doesn’t bother me anymore. I tell my students there is such a thing as “writer’s block,”
and they should respect it. You shouldn’t write through it. It’s blocked because it ought
to be blocked, because you haven’t got it right now.” –Toni Morrison
8) “Listen to music. I turn on any Puccini opera.” – Ken Auletta
9) “Report. Writers are less interesting than they think. Fortunately, the rest of the world
is more interesting. Interview people. Look at things. Don’t just sit at the computer.”
Jeffrey Toobin
10) “I don’t think that writer’s block exists really. I think that when you’re trying to do
something prematurely, it just won’t come. Certain subjects just need time…You’ve got
to wait before you write about them.” –Joyce Carol Oates
11) “Any writer who has difficulty in writing is probably not onto his true subject, but
wasting time with false, petty goals; as soon as you connect with your true subject you
will write. –Joyce Carol Oates
12) “Sit in the sun. Sun goes behind the cloud. Look at a watch. Notice that the secondhand does not always point directly at little marks on the dial. Sometimes it does,
though. Then sometimes it doesn’t. Why? Feel panic at how quickly life slips by. Get to
work.”—Nicholas Baker
13) “Put the paper in the typewriter, stare at it a long time, get snow-blindness if you
have to, but write something.” –Erma Bombeck
14) “The prescription is prevention: keep working, cross your fingers, get plenty of fresh
air.” –Kurt Anderson
15) “My prescription for writer’s block: Write badly. Bad writing is easier. And it must
be popular, there’s so much of it.” –P.J. O’Rourke
16) “Walk around the block.” –Bob Colacello
17) “I think the best advice on writing I’ve received was from John Steinbeck, who
suggested that one way to get around writer’s block was to pretend to be writing to an
aunt, or a friend. I did this, writing to an actress friend I knew, Jean Seberg. The editors
of Harper’s forgot to take off the salutation and that’s how the article begins in the
magazine: Dear Jean…” –George Plimpton
18) “Actually I’ve found that writer’s block occurs most frequently at the very top of
one’s work. So lose that tortured lead you were laboring over—it probably wasn’t any
good anyway—and write it straight. Halfway through the piece it’ll come to you—and
it’ll be better than when you began.” – Phil Mushnick
19) “It is often said that reading, for writers, is a busman’s holiday. This is true, but I
have found it to be one of the best cures for writer’s block. Reading certain authors—
Nabokov, for example—makes me feel jealous and tired. Reading Robert Aikman, my
favorite short story writer, invariably makes me want to pick up my pen.” –Amy Wallace
20) “Prescription for writer’s block: Begin. (With a pen, not a machine.)—Cynthia Ozick