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Writer's block

Defining Writer’s Block

Throughout history writer’s block has been a documented problem . References to writers’ struggle with the affliction touch literary greats like F. Scott Fitzgerald . and pop culture cartoonist, Charles Schultz . The research concentrating on this topic abounded in the late 1970s and 1980s. During this time, researchers were influenced by the Process and Post-Process movements, and therefore, focused specifically on the writer’s processes. Daly claims he and M.D. Miller completed the first “systematic” assessment of writing apprehension in 1975.

Irene Clark notes that writer’s block is a common affliction that most writers will experience at one time or another . Mike Rose defines writer’s block as “an inability to begin or continue writing for reasons other than lack of basic skill or commitment” . Additionally, The Purdue Online Writing Lab says, “Because writers have various ways of writing, a variety of things can cause a writer to experience anxiety, and sometimes this anxiety leads to writer's block . The literature seems to focuses on two areas related to writer’s clock: causes and potential cures or invention strategies.

Causes

Lawrence Oliver says, in his article, “Helping Students Overcome Writer’s Block,” “[Students] receive little or no advice on how to generate ideas or explore their thoughts, and they usually must proceed through the writing process without guidance or corrective feedback from the teacher, who withholds comments and criticism until grading the final product” . He says, students “learn to write by writing,” and often they are paralyzed by rules and/or insecure .

While some researchers, like Walter Ong, claim that the audience is fictionalized for a writer . Peter Elbow discusses, in his article, “Speaking with My Eyes Closed,” his “a limited claim” that in fact an over-awareness of a physical audience may cause a writer to block. He says that the idea of audience is often over-whelming and that if this is the case, writers should focus a first draft on writing without an audience (or to the wrong audience), and then in revision go back a writer for a focused audience .

Phyllis Koestenbaum wrote in her article, “The Secret Climate the Year I Stopped Writing” about her trepidation toward writing and claimed it was tied directly to her instructor’s response . She says, “I needed to write to feel, but without feeling I couldn't write” . To contrast Koestenbaum experience, Nancy Sommers express her belief that papers don’t end when students write that and neither should instructors’ comments . She urges a “partnership” between writers and instructors so that responses become a conversation .

James Adams notes in his book, Conceptual Blockbusting, various reasons blocks occur including fear of taking a risk, “chaos” in the pre-writing stage, judging versus generating ideas, unable to incubate ideas, or lack of motivation. Additionally, The Purdue Online Writing Lab explains common causes ranging an author being assigned a boring topic to an author who is so stressed out he/she cannot put words on the page, and suggests “possible cures” or invention strategy for each .

Invention Strategies

As far as strategies for coping with writer’s block Clark describes: class and group discussion, journals, free writing and brainstorming, clustering, list making, and engaging with the text . To overcome writing blocks, Oliver suggests that asking students questions to uncover their writing process . Then he recommends solutions such as systematic questioning, freewriting, and encouragement

Garbrielle Lussor Rico’s concern with the mind links to [Cognitive Theory] also explored by Rose and Linda Flowers and John R. Hayes among others. Rico’s book, Writing the Natural Way looks into invention strategies, such as clustering, which has been noted to be an invention strategy used to help writers overcome their blocks , and further emphasizes the solutions presented in works by Rose, Oliver, and Clark. Similar to Rico, James Adams discusses right brain involvement in writing . While Downey purposes that he is basing his approach in practical concerns , his concentration on right brain techniques speaks to Cognitive Theory approach similar to Rico’s and a more practical advise for writers to approach their writer’s block .