Phillip Pullman has said a few things that annoy me, but one of the most annoying is this:
"Writer’s block…a lot of howling nonsense would be avoided if, in every sentence containing the word WRITER, that word was taken out and the word PLUMBER substituted; and the result examined for the sense it makes. Do plumbers get plumber’s block? What would you think of a plumber who used that as an excuse not to do any work that day?"
I think Pullman's wrong, and that his analogy is inaccurate. Writing and plumbing aren't at all the same thing.
Most writers fit writing around the rest of their lives – paid employment, caring responsibilities, studies. They don't have all day every day to write, and – at least in the early days – they don't get paid.
Plumbing involves fixing problems: a blocked drain, a leaky tap, a broken boiler. I'm sure some of those problems are fiddly or tedious, and I'm sure creative thinking is an important part of fixing them. They don't, however, present the same type of challenge as writing – creating something real and tangible from nothing but your own thoughts.
I think that most writers experience some level of block at some point in their writing career. I've never come across anyone who couldn't write at all: most people are fine with, say, writing emails or writing for work, they just can't bring themselves to blog or write fiction or continue with their memoir.
Sometimes, the block is specific to your work-in-progress. This invariably happens to me in the middle of novels, and I've gone through it time and time again.
It happens when something isn't coming together, your gut tells you it's not working, and you feel like you need to pause and take a step back.
Trust that gut feeling.
Give yourself a few days or a couple of weeks, jot down a few notes or ideas occasionally, and let your subconscious figure it out.
If you're still stuck, then after your time limit's elapsed, get back to it. Skip the problematic section and move on. You may find that you need to keep writing in order to figure it out.
Of course, I wouldn't deny that writer's block can be an excuse. Writing can be tough and scary and hard work; it's perfectly human to want an excuse to get out of it, at times!
But I also think writer's block is a real issue for at least some writers, and that it's not helpful or kind of best-selling authors like Pullman to sweepingly suggest that it doesn't exist.
