The Writer's Pulse

Tips are opinions. No matter how many blogs or magazines you read, the advice you get is never guaranteed to work for you, because we’re all different.

None of that stops people like me from posting opinions and tips, occasionally laced with fact, but I thought I’d take a moment to state the obvious: what works for me, or what I think might help you, is ultimately a shot in the dark. I try to help but I’m only human, you know?

All of that said (and now you’re wondering what my point is), here is my number one tip for anyone who comes up against writer’s block or, my latest discovery, Blogger’s block:

Turn off the television, log off the computer, and put down the writing advice book.

Clear your mind.

I’m not crazy. In fact, you’ve heard this before, but usually only as a preamble to entering the writing process. Don’t ignore it as a legitimate way of tackling writer’s block.

Think of it like this: over time, through work and over-exposure to the media and the fast, busy world in general, our minds get overloaded. Stressed out. Fragmented. When you hit a creative obstacle, many times it will be due to over-thinking. You sit down to write, but it’s difficult to concentrate and you have so much left to do and your mind begins to drift away. You’re stale and your imagination is blank, except for the images put there by the daily grind. So what do you do?

You stop.

Not only do you drop whatever you’re working on, but you take a break, however short, from watching the talking heads on the news, browsing the Internet, cramming your head full of writing advice and the habits of successful authors. You chill, you go for a walk, you relax. You take a vacation away from all of those distractions.

A million tech junkies and, let’s face it, modern human beings are screaming in horror at the thought of giving up the Internet. TV? Maybe. Self-help books? Sure, why not. But the Internet? I’ve got to check my e-mail and Twitter and Facebook and MySpace and BlogCatalog! Maybe buy some things on Amazon, send out some text messages, download a new iPhone app. And I’ve got blogs to read! Blogs!

That disclaimer at the top of this post is there for a reason: this advice clearly won’t work for everyone, and even if it did, most wouldn’t want to take it. Many couldn’t simply due to their careers.

The point here, however, is not to “give up” anything, but simply to leave it all for a day or two or however long it takes for your mind to defragment. An actual vacation, in fact, is the perfect opportunity to leave the Internet and television behind.

Clear out the clutter, drop whatever artistic endeavors you’ve been failing to accomplish, and allow yourself to reset, just as you’d defragment or restart a computer that has been doing too much and running too long.

This overworking of your mind (emotions included) can drain your creativity and suck your inspiration dry. Sure, it’s not always the cause of what we call writer’s block, but it’s worth a try to just take a break if you feel your writing is becoming forced, or if you can’t muster up the will to write at all.

You’ve no doubt heard of the recent Iranian “election” and the subsequent uprising that followed. Hundreds of thousands of protesters are currently in the streets of Iran fighting for their voices to be heard after Ahmadinejad won what appeared to be a “landslide” victory against Mirhossein Mousavi. Regardless of whether or not the election of Mousavi would change our relations with Iran for the better, the United States and other countries around the world are watching as the fate of a nation is decided.

Unfortunately, Iran has been described as a “black hole” of information, as western journalists are no longer allowed in the country and most forms of communication, specifically on the Internet, have been barred from the public.

Except Twitter.

Yeah, they forgot about Twitter. So did I, actually, but it just keeps popping up in the news. It’s everywhere.

Anyway, most of our information about the Iranian uprising (or I suppose it should be called unrest) is being collected through Twitter. The U.S. State Department even asked that maintenance on the social network be postponed until this mess is over:

…a 27-year-old State Department official, Jared Cohen, e-mailed the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran. – With a Hint to Twitter, Washington Taps Into a Potent New Force in Democracy

Compelling.

I don’t know where all of this is going, or if Twitter will ultimately prove to be a useful tool in the spread and growth of democracy (and, I guess, journalism), but in times like these you take what you can get.