smart moves for style and clarity

When writers can’t get started, the cause is often a misplaced focus within the writing process. Sometimes we don’t really know what we want to say – but we don’t know it. In such cases it’s premature to expect words to flow. Writers who don’t recognize this fact feed a debilitating disease known as writer’s block.
 

This trendy ailment is based on the fantasy that writers draw pails of inspiration from an unconscious creative well. Unfortunately, the well is often dry. Believers use writer’s block as an excuse for procrastination. Professionals scoff at the idea.
 

Writing can be a mental workout; your progress may seem nil.  As the sportswriter Red Smith said: “Writing is easy. You just sit down at the typewriter, open up a vein, and bleed it out drop by drop.” And it’s easy to put off hard work. As the poet Robert Frost said: “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.”  
 

On other occasions, writing can be spontaneous and exhilarating. This fact seems to support the unconscious well theory, and might lead you to believe that you need an inspired state of mind to write well. 

Not true.
 

Acknowledge that you will always be more productive on some writing occasions than others, just as you are with any other task. Don’t enfeeble your efforts by waiting for a divine spark. Writing is a craft. Stick to it. Remember that the power of revising is on your side. You can always return to something written on a mediocre day and revise it on a great day – a huge advantage.
 

In an interview with The New York Times, essayist E.B. White said, “I think writing is mainly work. Like a mechanic’s job. A mechanic might as well say he was waiting for inspiration before he greased your car because if he didn’t feel just right he’d miss a lot of the grease points….” Hemingway put it more bluntly: “You can write anytime people will leave you alone and not interrupt you.”
 

Your approach to writing should be matter of fact, not mystical. If you’re not making progress, set a bar for yourself, say 500 words. So what if they are not the best words you have ever written? You can revise them later with the benefit of hindsight.  Ω   
 

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Related article  To highlight strong modifiers while revising, read Make the Most of Modifiers.