Two Kinds of Writer’s Block

For the last couple of episodes we have been talking about Talk to Me, a fabulous little horror movie. (Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of the Talk to Me Podcast) We’ve looked at this little horror movie from every different angle. We’ve looked at the first 10 pages. We’ve looked at mirrors and foils. We’ve looked at the genre elements. We’ve looked at world building. We’ve looked at theme. We’ve looked at a character’s journey and structure. We’ve dissected it and pulled it apart and analyzed it and developed some really awesome skills that you can apply whether you’re writing a horror movie or anything else. But what we haven’t talked about is actually the most palpable form of horror for most screenwriters, which has nothing to do with horror genre movies. Writer’s block. Procrastination. Being stuck.  A lot of writers don’t realize this, but there are actually two different forms of writer’s block.  The first kind of writer’s block is when you’re just not writing.  If you have the not-writing block, you probably know it. It’s obvious. You know you have it because you’re not writing. Or you’re procrastinating. Or you’re stuck waiting for the muse. You feel like you have no control over your own art or your own life. You can only write when you are inspired.  And sometimes months, years, decades go by without that inspiration. You don’t know how to get yourself writing or you find yourself procrastinating– pushing it off, pushing it off, pushing it off– and then rushing, rushing, rushing, to get it done. You never really have the time you need to do something beautiful.  You’re not writing. And that is probably causing you pain.  Now for some writers, it causes so much pain that they quit. But for a lot of writers, that pain eventually forces them to seek help.  And the good news is you don’t have to suffer with writer’s block. In my Write Your Screenplay class, we get an entire class full of people– sometimes people who have been blocked for 20 years– past writer’s block in one session. And I’ve yet to work with a single writer where these skills did not work. There are really simple cognitive behavioral skills that you can apply to writer’s block and procrastination. If you’re blocked from writing at all, these skills will break you through your block nearly instantly, with very little effort.  So the good news is, if you’re not writing, you can take care of it. You don’t have to live with this. You don’t have to be dependent upon the muse to come to you. You certainly can be in control of your own dream.  We’re going to talk about some of these strategies that you can use to get yourself writing again in a few moments, but first we need to talk about the other kind of writer’s block. The second form of writer’s block is flat, uninspired writing. If you have the second kind of writer’s block, there’s a good chance that you don’t even know it. Because you’re still writing… it’s just that you’re not writing anyt...