What is writer’s block, anyway?

Journalist and screenwriter Abdullah Erakat says, in our testimonial video opposite (or below), “After Imaginative Storm, writer’s block is a myth.” You can hear his enthusiasm, two years after he completed the course Write What You Don’t Know: Imaginative Storm Writer Training.

But is writer’s block really a myth?

Myths are an imagination-led way of explaining something that we know to be real but can’t explain otherwise. If you’re suffering writer’s block, it feels absolutely real: you have no ideas, no energy, just a great grey blanket of frustration and dullness blocking your flow.

Or maybe your writer’s block is more like an ogre blocking your path: with a rough club ready to bash you on the head if you try to write, and pointy teeth snapping at your heels if you try to run away. That’s the thing about writer’s block: you can’t do it, but you can’t give up wanting to do it. You feel powerless.

The good news is, you’re not powerless! You can do what Abdullah did: join the Imaginative Storm community and write what you don’t know.

Overcome writer’s block for good!

The Imaginative Storm method equips you with a powerful set of tools to take into the rest of your writing life. You’ll learn how to use prompts to spark creativity, how to use a timer to banish your rational mind’s urge to “write well,” how to transform your inner critic into your inner coach, how to find your own authentic writing voice.

Best of all, you’ll understand what it means to write what you don’t know.

When you’re suffering from writer’s block, usually you know what you want to write (this book or story, that poem) but you just don’t know what to write. The wonderful thing about feeling confident in writing what you don’t know is . . . you guessed it, that you don’t need to know what to write!

What if you don’t head straight down the path of that thing you want to write, the path where the ogre is leaping around with his knotty club? When you write what you don’t know, you widen the path. You go meandering off into the sagebrush and before you know it, you’ve found a new path and the ogre is just a tiny hamster-sized little ogre growling and snarling in your rear-view mirror.

Give it a try. Join us, and write what you don’t know.