What To Do When You Have Writer's Block

I am committed to writing on this blog every day for another ~77 days, and often I don't really have any good ideas about what to write. I usually think of writer's block in the context of, like, a tortured genius struggling to write their novel, not a Brooklyn dipshit who can't think of anything to post on his blog, but I guess it happens to all kinds of writers. Writer's block is tough for everyone, but I think I've cracked it: I've been developing a ten-step process for dealing with it when it happens, and I'm happy to be able to share it with my adoring audience today.

Step 1:

Google "what to write about when you have no ideas". Immediately upon doing this, discover that the results are exactly as stupid as they were last time. Wonder if there's actually good writing advice out there buried beneath a sea of Reddit threads and LinkedIn-style AI slop. Get pissed off at how bad the state of search has gotten. Hate read this stupid medium article again.

Step 2:

Try reading Hacker News and the NYT to see if they spark any ideas. Get pissed off, respectively, at how annoying programmers are and how bad everything happening in the world is. Decide you have nothing valuable to say about either politics or code and that the world might be a better place if more people felt the same way. Question if the world is worth saving.

Step 3:

Pace around a bit. Let your inner critic out. Embrace that you are worthless and stupid, your ideas are vapid, and your writing sucks. Consider giving up and playing videogames. Finally, force yourself to continue because you believe in the process.

Step 4:

Stare at the computer some more. The blank page will definitely give you ideas and not fill you with an endless sense of failure and dread. Start a few headlines and delete them. Mash the keyboard a bit to see what it would look like if there were text in there. Question if you actually believe in the process.

Step 5:

Put on some classical music because a decade ago you read a pop science article that said it's supposed to make you smarter. Consider that maybe the amount of smarter you can get isn't really going to help if you're starting from this low a baseline. Discover that the study that article was about has mostly been disproven. At least Mozart still slaps.

Step 7:

Try to think of something, anything interesting you saw or read or thought about in the past few days. If you're lucky, you'll end up writing about monster trucks or something else cool. If not, skip to Step 9.

Step 8:

Write about the interesting thing. Recognize your inability to do justice to the lived experience of it, and regret not taking more writing classes in college. Skip to step 10.

Step 9 (in event of failing at Step 8):

Give up, take that stupid Medium article's advice, and write about having writer's block. Frame it as sarcastic advice so you don't have to actually reckon with your own struggles in a public-facing forum. Regret the choices that led you here.

• Step 9a: Realize you forgot to write step 6. Decide it's not worth fixing.

Step 10:

Hit "publish" and tell yourself you'll write something better tomorrow. Congrats! You've successfully blogged.

Hope this helps!