Writer's Block Does Not Exist!

Not in this space, anyway.

But seriously. I had a conversation with a colleague aeons ago when I was completing my honors undergraduate thesis. I claimed I had writer's block and what he said to me changed my professional life.

He said, when you can't think of anything else to write, just go and read your sources. Simple, but profound. As an academic, that bit of advice helped me avoid a lot of unpleasant hazards. It kept my intellectual juices flowing at all times. This didn't mean I never got stuck on an idea or in a rut, but I never again felt so overwhelmingly helpless that I became totally arrested and unable to do anything that would help me proceed.

The mind is a flexible and remarkable tool. It can make associations and generate wild and brilliant ideas, and all it needs sometimes is a spark. Don't be afraid to expose yourself to others' ideas. It was T. S. Eliot who said great poets steal! I don't go that far, but I do know that genius isn't always coming up with the most original idea. It's having enough knowledge of what's already out there so that your mind can churn all that information into something new and brilliant. What's originality anyway but the clever retooling of a past innovation?

So when your mind is blocked, go find inspiration. Seek it, seek it, may all your thoughts be bent on it. Seek it anywhere and everywhere: in a book on the topic, in a video, a comic strip, Instagram. This is the age of information and you can't afford to let all that material go to waste while you nurse your writer's block. Take the challenge. Take the plunge. Go explore some others' ideas on your topic and see if you don't get an idea in no time flat. Do it. I dare ya.