When I was in graduate school, I took a seminar about the idea of the Author, meaning that mythic figure with a capital A who epitomizes greatness and compared with whom the rest of us are just hacks. Of course this idea is pernicious; it privileges a certain narrow spectrum of literary writing, commonly but not inevitably by straight white men, and delegitimizes genre fiction, business writing, legal writing, and pretty much any other kind of writing that isn’t some sort of purely literary enterprise. (Or part of what a friend of mine dubs “The Fine Ahhhts. The Fahhhts.”) It’s a straw man, of course, but a pervasive one in Western culture.
As part of the class, a colleague and I collaborated on a research paper about writer’s block, exploring how the Authorship concept made it easy to overlook the blocking that non-Fahhhtists experience, because true block is the interruption of Grand Literary Inspiration. I learned two conflicting lessons from this research: that every writer experiences block — which I still know to be true — and that block ought to be easy to solve through a number of pragmatic approaches. “Easy” is the problem here, clearly.
I think I bought into that idea at the time because I was mostly writing to order. I had focused classes with specific professors whose needs, interests and biases I understood; I had reasonably clear assignments and ground rules; and I had a working culture in which I was supposed to be spending the bulk of my time doing this, at least when not teaching. If I found myself stuck, I simply had to remind myself of my rules and my goals. Finish the paper, earn a good grade, earn the course credit, get accepted to a conference panel; occasionally, close the door on a subject area or working relationship I didn’t want to continue into the future.
Professional writing is not so simple. I’ve been earning my living as a non-academic writer and editor for nearly 20 years now, and I’ve learned that it’s possible for me to be blocked even on a simple, clear assignment. Usually it’s because I either have conflicting objectives or just want to do something beyond what’s suitable for the project. Like all writers I know, I always want everything I write to be the best. Like all writers I know, I constantly fall short of that ideal. Some days I just feel the discrepancy more. And sometimes I’m simply trying to do two things at once, and need to pick one, and don’t especially like my choices. And then I turn to my personal creative projects and think, ah, this won’t be like that professional work! This will be brilliant! No recipe for disaster there, obviously.
I still think most writer’s block can be solved, but not easily. The first step is to recognize what the block is. Am I trying to write a single piece to fit two or more fundamentally incompatible standards — for example, complete and detailed instructions for an employee benefits option, but in a chatty voice and in less than 100 words? Am I trying to make middling results look heroic? Is it just too noisy in here, and would headphones help? Once I know the problem, solutions can be clear, but sometimes time-consuming and not necessarily fun. Get the client to prioritize the constraints, and make clear that not all will be equally possible to meet. Ask for an extension. Take a deep breath and just keep going. And occasionally, the true solution isn’t possible: I can’t move my office to a quieter part of the floor (or building or city), I can’t get more information to flesh out the profile, I can’t break the word-count limit. As Fahhhtists we tend to be least fond of the art of compromise, but we must practice it anyway.
What is your experience with writer’s block in a professional setting?