5 Cures for Writer’s Block

It happens to the best of us: You’ve got a paper due in 9 hours, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to finish, or a grade-making presentation to write, and the only thing you can manage to type is your name. Is it because you’re a huge procrastinator? A sinkhole of productivity? A vacuum of originality? Probably. But it could also be due to Writer’s Block, a condition that tends to strike when we can least afford it, and a condition that we at SparkNotes are all too familiar with. We’ve devised a few tricks to light some sparks of inspiration in a blank mind. When you can’t think of a single thing to write, try this:

1. Place a flashlight in your right hand, close your eyes, and spin violently in a circle until you become so disoriented that you collapse into a literary puddle. From your cozy spot on the floor, turn on your flashlight and open your eyes. Whatever the beam of light has landed upon shall become your new muse. Did it come to rest on your little brother’s wart collection? Write a haiku about it. Is it reflecting beautifully off your third cousin’s gold tooth? Script up a sonnet. Is it locked on a life-sized Lego replica of Han Solo? Well, damn. If you’ve got one of those, who cares about writer’s block. IT’S A LIFE-SIZE LEGO REPLICA OF HAN SOLO.

2. Give up completely. Do so in the most writerly of ways by smacking your sweaty hand exasperatedly against your un-scholarly forehead, throwing your computer at the wall repeatedly until is explodes into flames, breaking your desk in half with several well-aimed elbow-drops, and finally chiseling onto the wall, in 3-foot-tall letters, the words “THE WORLD SHALL NEVER KNOW MY BRILLIANCE,” using only an old-fashioned #2 pencil and your teeth as a sharpener.

3. Plagiarize. NO, NOT REALLY, you would-be felon. Geez. Instead, try emulating your favorite author to get the creative juices a’flowin’. Love e.e. cummings? Then cut out capital letters. Taken a shine to Stephanie Meyer? Bust out some forbidden teenage romance. Adore Nathaniel Hawthorne? Of course not. No one does. But that doesn’t mean you can’t add some Puritan sparkle to your prose, Hester.

4. DANCE BREAK. There’s nothing like some shimmy-shammyin’ to revive the spirit and wake the inner scribe. Can’t dance? Nonsense. Watch this and bust a move, champ. If you can’t groove your way to a Henry O. Prize for literature, then you’re just not trying hard enough.

5. Eat a book. This is only to be done as a last resort, because it’s irrational, unhealthy, and completely and utterly useless. But it sure will make you sound cool when you talk about it at parties. And by cool, we mean deranged and digestively challenged. YUM. Now get to chewin'.

What was your worst writer's block catastrophe like?

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