Why Visionary Writers get Writer's Block

You might recognise these causes, but do you know what's driving them?

In my last post, How to Tell if You’re a Visionary Writer experiencing Writer’s Block, we looked at some of the reasons Writer’s Block can be so common among Visionary Writers.

In this post, we’ll explore the Top 3 Causes of Writer’s Block for Visionary Writers:

1. Procrastination

Finding time to do every mindless task that never needed doing – instead of getting on with writing. You tell yourself you’re going to write, but then you: do the dishes, go for a walk, clean out the fridge, organise your bookshelves, wash the car, walk the dog, and create a new playlist on Spotify instead…

Procrastination is a way of avoiding the task of writing from a fear that it will be too difficult or challenging, and is – ultimately – a fear of failure. So we create the conditions for our own failure by Not Even Starting. You may not even notice any more the discomfort that this causes in your body as you go about your day, but somewhere, on some level, you’ll be registering the deep grief and regret of not doing what you want to be doing. What lights you up and you feel most passionate about. Doing the thing that – when you do it – makes you feel amazing and confident and accomplished and alive! 

So, why do we do it? Society sets us up to fail as writers, because we’ve inherited a limited perspective about what writing is and how writers write. Imagine this: you’re telling yourself you want to write, and really you do – but every fibre of your being is preventing you from getting down to it. On a deep, unconscious level, you may have certain beliefs about what it means to be a writer, and whether or not it’s ‘safe’ or ‘appropriate’ or ‘viable’ or ‘sensible’ for you to even consider pursuing your dreams as a writer. 

And yet – as a Visionary Writer, the very act of you writing is part of your participation in undoing those old structures of belief and helping to co-create a way of being in the world that is already much more healthy, vibrant and wild. 

2. Perfectionism

Sitting at the laptop knowing that you want to write, but finding that your mind goes blank, no words feel right or good enough, sentences seem pointless and impossible – and you simply cannot start because you will never be able to write what’s actually in your head…

Perfectionism is another form of trauma-based fear. The fear of not being good enough. Which is ultimately the fear of being rejected and not being loved. This is a big evolutionary fear that goes deep in so many of us. Humans are community creatures. We need love. We need relationship and connection. We need each other for warmth and survival. Without that connection, we are literally lost. So we learn to stay small, to protect ourselves from judgement and criticism, to Not Stand Out. 

This, coupled with the “right” way we were taught to write through western cultural education, makes it very difficult for us to practice messy creativity. While our critical and analytical minds have been privileged by our society, our creative hearts have been undernourished and under-recognised. It can be hard to separate the Editor (or Inner Critic) from the Writer when we first sit down to write. And our fear of getting it “wrong”, or not being good enough, can prevent us from ever getting our first words onto the page.  

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

3. Burnout

Endless, endless, duvet days. Because – even if you knew what you wanted to be writing – you simply wouldn’t have the energy for that right now. You read instead, to give you inspiration, but even the reading doesn’t give you what you need to take action and actually write. Your ideas wither and stagnate as another day without writing draws to a close, and tomorrow you have to go back to work…

Ugh, burnout. I have been there. You know what I believe to be the root cause of it? Misdirected creative energy. Hello, again, patriarchal and colonial capitalism.

You have a sense that things are really not supposed to be like this. The endless work and toil to make ends meet in an increasingly financialised world, where creativity is woefully under-valued and under-funded, and you’ve taken on two extra jobs just to pay the bills. Time to write? Give me a break. (Literally).

And. Yet. Not writing is probably also, paradoxically, a big part of the reason why we feel so lacking in creative energy when we feel burnt out. From my own experience, giving away all my creative energy to things that do not feel ultimately nourishing or replenishing, is a way that I have repeatedly put myself into burn out situations and lost my interest, inspiration and motivation for writing. Even when I know I want and need to be writing. 

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Procrastination, Perfectionism and Burnout can slow you down – but they won’t stop you from writing forever. 

If you are a Visionary Writer and you know you want to (need to) write, but your words are getting stuck before they get onto the page, you can subscribe to Writing & Thriving, or get the book, to find out how to break this cycle and Find Your Visionary Writing Voice.