One Simple Way to Block Writer's Block

Writing Practice: The Sport of the Wordsmith.

Behind every great athlete there are hundreds of hours of practice. Why should writing be any different?

It shouldn't.

Writing is a process and it is difficult. Some find it more difficult than others. All who write, however, find that it becomes easier with practice.

A kindergartener learning to print for the first time struggles with keeping his block letters on the lines, making the T cross just right and remembering that a d has a circle on the left side of the stick and a b has the circle on the right side.

As we get older our writing tasks become much more difficult. Composition courses in college-and even some non-composition courses-demand skills that very few students actually possess. And many of these students suffer from writer's anxiety when faced with these demands.

But how to reduce the risk of writer's anxiety? One sure way is to practice-and not just college kids. All who write, whether for school, work, or pleasure-writing becomes less difficult the more you do it.

While writing is a creative process, an art form even, that may come naturally to some-knowledge and mastery of the techniques of writing go a long way to reducing anxiety. Knowledge of sentence structure, voice, point of view, dialogue, characterization, prewriting, editing, research, discipline, tenses, passive and active words, parts of speech, grammatical norms, and writing toward a specific audience-when mastered and combined with imagination and talent-help an author become a more powerful writer.

But which of these techniques is the most important? Discipline. Discipline in writing leads to better writing. A disciplined writer has an easier time generating ideas, organizing their thoughts, and better meets deadlines.

But what is meant by disciplined? Some who style themselves as writers or 'wannabe' writers say that they write when the inspiration comes. But many many more writers claim that writing on a regular basis causes the inspiration to come on a regular basis. What's behind that?