Guest post from Angela Baker

Writing is a beautiful creative process that can have a beneficial effect on our mental health and inner peace. It can help us find a connection between our mind and our emotions and establish a balance that we all need. This is because writing can shape thinking. But, what does that mean?
 
There are impressive ways in which writing shapes our thinking and can help us reach depths we didn't even know existed. If you want to learn more, just keep reading. Here's how writing positively influences your thinking and helps you grow.

Writing a book for most of us is a very solitary task, in those pre-pandemic days you may have wandered off to your local coffee shop and spent a couple of hours diligently increasing the word count of your manuscript, admittedly you are now surrounded by people, but you are still working alone.  And the thing about working alone is that motivation (after a while) can stagnate.

And this is the thing, many people start off a new project, goal, or task with the best of intentions only to get three months in and slowly lose the motivation to stick with it, how many gym memberships are used like crazy in Jan/Feb and then by June have been canceled? The same goes with diets, everyone has the best of intentions and then when any roadblock is faced, they quit, regaining any weight lost and going back to unhealthy habits.

How many unfinished manuscripts are stored in long forgotten folders on laptops and PCs? Every single one of them started with the best of intentions and now they lay waiting for their authors to return and complete them?

Creativity in writing, design, art, music and any form of expression will always be at the forefront of the discipline, it’s where new ideas, new paths, new ways of looking at the world and the leading edge of your chosen art form lie. But like ‘Writer’s Block’, struggling for creativity can happen (and has happened to many artists).

However, most blocks are just temporary, caused by trying to force something and a lack of patience, this leads on to panicking that you’ll never complete what you’re working on and the spiral continues.

But there is hope, as mentioned, it is just temporary and sometimes the best thing to do is to simply stop for the day. It’s so beneficial to rest and get back to it after a good night’s sleep (it’s surprising how much differently you look at what you’ve just created/worked on after 24hrs).
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There are many ways to get back into your creative flow, all of them are easy to do and maybe just a combination of a couple will get you back on track.

Most authors will at some point in their life face writer’s block, and for some this can feel completely crippling, staring blankly at the page before them with no idea of how to start or where to go next. This is something that has affected the most successful writers and authors of every age, so you’re in good company if you’re battling a block right now.

The good news is that you can work past any block, with the right frame of mind and trying some of the following techniques you can get your flow back and start writing once more!
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So here are our top ten ideas of overcoming writer’s block.