The Five Stages of Writer's Block

By Tamiera Vandegrift on February 10, 2016

Hell hath no fury like staring at a blank Word document as you fail to remember how to form proper syntax. This pesky predicament is a symptom for the ailment we all know and hate: writer’s block. The frustration of a blank mind has taken all but your resistance against banging your head into your desk, and even that is beginning to fade. We’ve all been here before. Here are the five stages of writer’s block.

1. Denial

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What is writer’s block? Psh, you don’t even know what that phrase is. The power of wordplay is coursing through your veins and you only need to grip a writing utensil to express that power. In fact, your writing power is so vast and strong that you don’t even need to start this assignment right now. The words will just come straight from your brain when you need them. There’s no need to panic or force yourself to sit down and start writing. After all, you’ll get to it when you get to it. When you do get to it, your words will be more legendary than that time last semester, when you stayed in the library for God knows how long, surviving off of nothing more than Adderall and Red Bull. Those were such dark days, but now you’ve grown past them and moved onto bigger and better things, like callously dismissing your 850-word paper under the pretense that you’ll be able to complete it in record time when necessary. Writing is easy…

2. Anger

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 …Or so you hoped. After an entire weekend of drunken debauchery, you’re finally sitting down to tackle this essay. Perhaps that fifteenth jello shot has devoured your inner-Shakespeare along with whatever hope you had for keeping your liver healthy. The words that seemed to be floating at the top of your head are now somewhere in oblivion. As you stare at that blinking cursor on your Word document, it occurs in your mind that the flashing vertical icon is mocking you. Every blink reflects every inch of frustration that grows within your soul. Why did I take a course with such a heavy writing requirement?, you ask yourself. Why did I wait until the last possible night to complete it? Why did I go to college? Why didn’t I listen to my parents and work in the family business instead? Why was I even born? As these questions flood your mind, your inner frustration and self-loathing only grows stronger.
3. Bargaining 

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The presence of the writing gods isn’t guaranteed, but you’re praying to them anyway. In fact, you’re praying to anyone who will listen: your cat, your roommate, your parents, your roommate’s parents, your professor, your professor’s parents… The list is endless. All of them have met you with the same rebuttal: “Sorry, kid. Godspeed.” At this point, you’ve started begging the voices in your head (it may be a good idea to contact your therapist after you finish that paper) to turn back time to Friday night when you could’ve utilized your Icarus mode to knock out that paper in an hour flat. That hour seems so precious to you now. You’d do anything from sacrificing your first-born child to sacrificing your free weekends from now on just to have that one evening back in your grasp. Okay, maybe you wouldn’t go that far. After all, that guy Steven from Sigma Alpha Epsilon is throwing another shindig next Saturday.
4. Depression

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It’s time to give up all hope. With tearful eyes, you accept your fate of eternal mediocrity. Fitzgerald and Hemingway are laughing at you from the other side of the mortal coil. That blinking cursor has ceased its mocking; instead, it has resorted to flashing slower and slower in rhythm to your breaking soul. Finally, it has occurred to you why the majority of writers you learned about in high school English battled severe drug addictions. Writer’s block is enough to drive anyone completely mad. The inability to produce any form of Mozart-level syntax music is dragging your soul into the burning depths of Hades- at least in your mind. It’s time to listen to Hamilton the Musical and let Lin-Manuel Miranda shame you for not being able to complete an 800-word paper, when he could write a full-length Broadway musical about the guy on the ten dollar bill. For shame, friend, for shame.
5. Acceptance

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You’re not Shakespeare,  Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Mozart, or (most unfortunately) Lin-Manuel Miranda. You’re perfectly imperfect you and that’s all you need to be. This epiphany has crashed into you harder than your fingers slammed onto the keyboard when you finally found your words. Writer’s block, as you’ve learned, is literal hell. Fortunately, like any process, it can be defeated in a few short stages of self-doubt, self-questioning, and maybe a tad of self-loathing. By having this epiphany, you’ve escaped from the mental prison where other writers are entrapped for eternity. This paper is flowing from your fingertips with more simplicity than ever before. Now, look at that. You’ve got yourself a pretty epic thesis statement.

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