Ways to Get Around Writer’s Block

by Auston Little

Start jogging to get the mind flowing, then use an app to train for a marathon. Eventually write an authoritative blog on what to buy at GNC.

Make some tea and stare out at your yard until you realize you want to write about your failure as a homemaker, and your relationship with your Google Home. Market your writing as a wry take on contemporary life.

Go into insurance. Just part time, maybe. Unless the benefits are too good. Okay, for now, work full time to get benefits, just until you get that mole on your back checked out. The mole is nothing, but you find you are shockingly good at writing insurance reports.

Read your past journals and use the entries to inform your new story, a love triangle between two English majors and a communication major. Entitle it, “The Quad.”

Have a child, which forces you to be more time-efficient with the twenty minutes of free time you have every day. Find yourself writing about the single life.

Start learning French. Segue into writing a children’s book about a French boy and his talking parrot.

Research your hometown and discovery exactly why you loathe its history and people. Make a fortune off lampooning the town and its inhabitants, but never again feel welcome at the town grocery store, hardware store, or library.  

Move to rural Connecticut and start writing. At first, enjoy the scenery and your heightened productivity. Eventually find that the solitude makes voices in your head louder and louder. You have nothing to write about except the voices. Move back to the city.

Go clubbing and live a little. Then write about seeing a local tragedy. You didn’t know the victim, exactly, but you’ve met his cousin. It’s enough to power your entire first novel.