Give Your Writer’s Block the Ol’ Head Fake

29

Oct

Give Your Writer’s Block the Ol’ Head Fake

by Jeff

While I love, love, love Melissa Karnaze’s Copy­blog­ger post on how to make Writer’s Block a “Secret Weapon,” there’s like 5% 0f the time when what she describes as writer’s block isn’t quite what I experience.

Her premise: if you’re hav­ing trou­ble say­ing it, you prob­a­bly aren’t all that clear on what you want to say.

But what if you know what you want to say, but you’re goon­ing up the emo­tion? What if you need a scalpel and you’re pen feels like a chainsaw?

Well, even though the fol­low­ing may not make any sense, it always works for me:

1. Go visit Post­Se­cret.
2. Read through the secrets till you find 2–3 really juicy ones.  Not juicy as in par­tic­u­larly lurid, but as in wince induc­ing.  Your heart should go out to the per­son.  Or there should be a “pucker fac­tor” in read­ing their secret.
3. Now that you have a few of those, pick one and start imag­in­ing the per­son who wrote it. Cre­ate a char­ac­ter, back­story, etc.
4. Spend about 10 min­utes writ­ing the first sev­eral para­graphs or page of a short story that starts with the Post Secret state­ment and that cen­ters around your char­ac­ter.  Make sure to set a timer of some sort.

When the timer goes off you’ll be on the other side of the world from the emo­tional and men­tal state you started in.  And the bor­rowed wings of your nar­ra­tive will fly with you when you go back to writ­ing your copy.

* Spe­cial thanks to Holly Buchanan for intro­duc­ing me to Post Secret 

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Tags: Copywriting, Post Secret, Writer’s Block Filed Under Psychology & Copywriting, Writing Techniques 

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