Writer's Block

I almost did not launch my writing today.

I have been felt demotivated since yesterday. I was very tired with all the activities I committed. I felt lazy to wake up this morning, felt the weight of reading Qur'an as well as doing my research activities.  Including this matter of writing challenge, I wanted to skip it. However I tried to remind myself why all those was important to me. I forced myself, and that was hard, to keep everything run as usual.

Regarding the writing challenge, I felt that I could not write today. At the beginning, I did not get any idea. Then when an idea came, I could not put it into words. Although I am not a professional writer, it seemed I was facing the signs of a condition known as writer's block.

Again, I tried to fight it over as I remembered the commitment I made about the challenge. However, what I should produce? Then, I thought to write about this thing, about writer's block.

Writers' block is a terminology to describe a condition when a writer loses his or her ability to produce new work. There several types of writers' block and each may happen even to beginner writers. Several of people even have already had the symptoms of this "writer's disease" just before starting his or her first (published) writing. This page explains the types of writers' block that may happen to a writer.

The terminology of writer's block firstly I heard when I watched a movie titled 'Stranger than Fiction'. The movie was about a man who tried to stop a novel writer to kill a character in her new story. The reason he tried to stop her was because of what she typed on her typewriter would happen while the character supposed to die was him. The writer, she did not expect that the character was exist in the real world.

In that movie, the writer, who was beautifully played by Emma Thompson, had been struck with writer's block for (as far as I recalled) ten years since her last novel. Her assistant tried to help her overcome that situation, however most of the attempts did not work. However, eventually, she managed to overcome her devastating situation as she saw a simple thing. The part of she overcame her problem might not be the main outline of the movie, but I learned from it that the solution she looked for was unexpectedly simple.

Based on the movie I watched, I concluded there are three steps to overcome this situation. The first thing is to admit that you are facing writer's block. I think this first step will apply for every problem. To overcome a problem, one has to admit that he or she has the problem. The second step is to be aware with the surounding. Idea is somehow near to us waiting to be grabbed. Use your senses:  sound, sight, touch, smell and taste (in the movie it was her sense of sight, then). The last step is "DON'T WAIT! START IMMEDIATELY!". As soon as the idea is obtained, write it down and do not think whether it is perfect or not. Revise later!

As I wrote this writing, I felt I could ease my burden for a little bit. Then, as I reviewed this writing, it realized that I should be grateful to have the symptoms of writer's block. Meaning what?
To experience writers' block means I am on the right track, aren't I?
The "writers' disease" should come to a writer and not to everybody else, right?

So, it is also for you who feel the same situation --even for you who think that you have never written anything before--, you should be encouraged. That is perhaps a good sign that you are a great writer in the future. You just need to start and make it happen. Be victorious over your writer's block!

PS:

The link of the page I put in this writing also contains the solutions of each type of writers' block. Those should be more helpful and more striking the problem than my points (as they were only a conclusion of mine from watching a movie).