The curse of writer's block

I rarely suffer from writer's block, and even when I do I force myself to keel going, to write rubbish.

One of the reasons I do that is because I see writing as my profession.  I'm not aiming to be a hobby writer dabbling around with a few pieces of work, I aim to be a professional writer selling my work to the world.  Which means that I always have to be working on the next big thing.

I write my first drafts longhand, usually in various local cafés. Sitting down with my cappuccino signals my brain that it's time to create.  I'll usually do around an hour and a half, then go home and type up what I've done.  Then I'll repeat the process in the afternoon.  My overall writing day can be between five and seven hours of work, in two or three sessions.

Not everybody has the luxury of being a full time writer.  If you're holding down a day job you especially can't let writer's block wreck your precious writing time.  So what to do?  You could try timed writing. Set a timer for 30 minutes and just write.  Don't censor what you produce.  Give yourself permission to write rubbish, and just write,

You'll find when you read it back that it's not so bad after all.  My creative writing students often say they think their stories are rubbish when in fact they're very good. Our internal censors are far too hard on us, and we have to find a way to get them out of the way.