Sometimes, it doesn’t even feel like a block. It’s more like a long, almost sedating haze that sets in over an empty google doc and stays there, heavy on your fingers. It’s not an “obstacle” because you can’t leap over it, duck under it, or try to shove it aside. Often, it opens waterfalls of self-doubt and self-pity, all of which churn in their malicious cycle to lock your fingers from setting the wheel into motion.
Perhaps you’re about to start writing college essay, or you’re attempting to rewrite your twenty-something draft of a paper for class. Maybe you love the material, or maybe even thinking about your paper makes you snore. Either way, just remember that you don’t have to write it all in out in one inspirational, fiery go—if you do, you have a procrastination problem which should be dealt with way before you start on untangling your writing struggles; procrastination, at least for me, is on a whole other level.
In fact, I’ve realized over the years of many, many rushed research papers and Shakespeare essays that procrastination is the sole root of my writer’s block.
I’ve never been a die-hard fan of Romeo and Juliet, so the idea of yapping for five pages about how the complexities of where exactly Shakespeare placed a comma (or dropped an eyelash) just doesn’t exactly throw me into a writer’s verbal frenzy.
So, I procrastinate.
I jot down lists and bullet points and make sure to cross my t’s and dot my i’s so that I know exactly what to write about…when I actually chose to start writing. Because I will. Eventually. With plenty of time for extensive drafting and reviewing.
The reality is simple: I'm afraid of reading my own work. I’m afraid of starting a paper early with enough time to reread it and develop a second draft because it means I have to acknowledge my many downs and few ups in my writing. Repeated, unaddressed feedback from teachers manifesting as glaring errors in rough drafts condenses into sweat and tears, prickling my skin like needles as I scroll down any draft I’ve written within the past year. I know my problem, and I have more than one way to try and solve it.
However, actually utilizing one of these techniques (actually using my outline in my drafts, or sticking to one idea for each paragraph) means acknowledging my errors, and quite frankly, I was still too afraid of that. So, I left my paper untouched and unwanted until the day before it’s due.
I do not have a mysterious ailment that makes my fingers allergic from Google docs but not from texting my friends on iMessage. My inability to write may stem from anxiety, but going even further down, I know just how to extinguish that anxiety—by putting an end to my procrastination. In math class.
As a STEM-oriented person, I usually finish my science homework as quickly as I can for the simple reason that I love it. However, this isn’t always the case for math homework, especially for assignments with calculus. So, I started, quite literally, forcing myself to do math homework as soon as I had a free period or study hall. I would “accidentally” forget my phone in my backpack and “randomly” decide not to bring my entire bag to the library, instead only bringing a calculator, pencil, and math binder.
To leave the library in search of my phone would mean breaking a promise, an important one, and so I stayed in the library until it was done. My teacher began to compliment my steady, rush-free handwriting—quite at odds with that of previous assignments done on the train ten minutes before class.
Writing was a different matter, both by nature and by personal preference. Writing has never come easily to me, and the fact that it’s on a computer means that I’ll 100% be writing with my Airpods in, Spotify blasting. I’ll have to add a new song to this or that playlist, skip that other one, check my texts, open Roblox…anything but writing.
So, I use the pomodoro timer. I usually modify it so that I’m writing for about 45 minutes and taking a break for about five because after LOTS of trial and error, I’ve realized that’s what works best for me. I also set “downtime” limits for myself on specific apps/websites and remind myself that as soon as I get a rough draft in, I can reward myself by taking off those pesky screen time limits.
Then, as soon as I complete some non-painful Spotify playlist rearranging or grab myself a seize-the-day Cliff bar, I open up my paper and read. I like to try to read my paper after I’ve completed some other work, productive or not, to look at it with fresh eyes.
Rereading my own work—which always sounds so clunky and frankly reads like climbing up a very steep and bulging cliff—can usually be done in sections. I might read the first two paragraphs, take a couple of minutes to swat away the imaginary bees in my head causing their monotone buzzing every time I try to read my own work, and then dive right back in.
It’s hard learning how to swim in the waves of your own writing—after years of Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, and Leo Tolstoy, it’s kind of like drifting along in a pool full of branches and leaves—writing errors—and not really NEEDING to remove that rock or leaf because the water doesn’t really have tumultuous waves pulling me towards an unknown destination; I wrote the paper, I know where it’s going.
However, who wants to swim in dirty, obstacle-ridden water? Wouldn’t it be nice for a paper to represent clear, sparkling water with exciting waves so fantastical that even you, the author, forget where the paper is going?
And so, I read. I read, and I write. I’ll make small edits; I make sure to write them in a different font so that in the future I can distinguish between a necessary edit and one made at 1am. It’s not going to be perfect—it never will be—but it’s been given a week’s worth of effort as opposed to a day’s.
I don’t have a magical condition where the writing just HALTS like a glaring stop sign just as you exit the suburbs and head into New York City, where it’s harder to drive.
There’s no excuse for my laziness—that’s all that it is, laziness. Overcoming laziness means fighting with yourself and understanding that you may be your worst opponent. Lock away your phone.
Turn on screen time. Tell your friends that you can study together in the library…in silence. Ask for feedback from your teacher.
When the buzzing gets so loud in your head to the point where you can’t hear that little voice in your head telling you to start the next crucial paragraph, that’s when you know you’ve hit NYC, you’ve the long and tumultuous part of the ride—it’s still part of the ride, however, and someday you’re going to have to learn how to drive right through it.
Make today be the day! Carpe diem! Seize the day!
