I should be writing.
I should be writing something right now.
We’ve all had that niggling feeling lurking behind our carefree enjoyment.
You’re lying in bed. Or making some toast. Or drawing little pictures of your dream house. Or doing something really quite important, like sorting all your books according to the colours of their spines.
Writer’s block. Even reading the words gives you chills.
It’s the bane of every writer’s existence. It keeps us up at night, tossing, turning and agonizing over those few more words we need to put on the page before our book, blog, or report is finished.
But I’m here to tell you something, folks: writer’s block isn’t actually a thing.
That’s right. Writer’s block doesn’t exist. It’s a made-up concept that people tell themselves to get out of writing.
It’s nothing more than an excuse.
Your readers are not your enemies.
Sounds obvious, doesn’t it?
You might think: I don’t think that—I love my readers.
Or maybe: I’d love MORE readers.
No matter what kind of writer (or speaker) you are, it’s amazing how the subtle feeling that your audience is the enemy can sneak in. Once it’s there, it can give writing a defensive tone that is a major turn-off—the opposite of what we all want.
How often do marketers talk about appealing to someone’s subconscious desires, or suggest that a person’s impulse buy is the result of an unexpressed, or repressed, emotion?
Or, how often do we — when noticing that someone is making assumptions about the unarticulated desires of others — explain someone’s claims as an instance of the speaker projecting their interests or aims onto someone else?Continue reading