Among the creative media, music is one of the most important members that have been around from the time humans started thinking. Although music was at its raw form during early ages of the civilization, it is at the peak at present with the creativity and variety. Due to the large contribution and globalization, we experience various types of music composed by various artists from various parts of the world.

Same as for writing professionals, writer’s block is common for music professionals as well. For music professionals, writing block affects in two categories of music makers; composers and songwriters.

When it comes to songwriters, the case is quite clear. Before writer’s block came into the work of music, it has been there for poetry for ages. There are many famous poets who have suffered from writer’s block, causing them to delay or abandon their work. Since poetry is quite creative and concise than writing, the simplest and unexpected things can cause writer’s block.

When it comes to songwriters, writer’s block affects the same way as it did for the poets. Modern songwriters have much more challenges than the early poets, as music has become a business than an art. Therefore, there is an increased pressure on songwriters to write the correct song and send it to the market become someone else comes up with a hit song. This pressure itself can drag a songwriter into writer’s block and end his / her career. The next cause can be the lack of ideas for writing songs as modern songs have covered each and every topic that exist under the Sun and it can be quite hard to be creative on the subjects that have already been permutated many times.

When it comes to music composers, the causes and affects are not different from the songwriters. Composers are also under heavy pressure to compose the next hit song or the music theme. This makes composers restless and some composers become easy victims of writer’s block due to the very reason. When taking the music history into account, there have been number of composers who have gone into extended career breaks due to writer’s block.

1. Turn the inner critic ‘off’ when writing

Sometime, you become too critical of your own work while writing. Therefore, you start fine-tuning your work sentence after sentence. When you are obsessed with this practice, it slowly starts killing your creativity and the inspiration and eventually takes you into writer’s block. Please remember, there is a phase called ‘Editing’ in writing to make corrections and adjustments of your work.

2. Take a rest

Taking a rest is important for you to come up with creative and unique ideas. Whenever, you are done with a logical block of your writing, you can simply take a rest of a few hours or a few days. The duration of the rest can depend on the amount of the work that you just completed. Once you are completely done with a massive writing project, you can even take rest of weeks or months.

3. Educate yourself about writer’s block

There are a number of books written on writer’s block and some of them are even freely available on the Internet. In addition to that, there are a number of forums where writers talk about their own experiences and cures related to writer’s block. As an alternative, you can write or talk to one of your friends (a writer is preferred) regarding your situation and he / she might actually be able to help you.

4. Keep practicing

When you become a professional writer, you might start mocking at the writing practices that you did when you were in college. Never do this mistake! If you have time or if you are suffering from writer’s block, try out some of old writing exercises. Some of the exercises are actually designed to make you understand the same thing in different viewpoints and who knows whether you will get the next best idea to continue your current writing work.

5. Bottom-line; you are a writer!

Take time to look back and see what you have been writing for years and why. First of all, you are a professional writer and not everyone can take up the challenge. The retrospect can alone boost your morale.

Writer’s block is one of the most common conditions found among the professional writers. Therefore, it is quite necessary to know the ways of getting rid of it as you may require this knowledge by tomorrow!

1. Have your own writing schedule

If you are a professional or a budding writer, you may be aware of the most productive hours of the day for you. In most cases, writers cannot write for hours, rather they choose a couple of hours from the most productive hours of the day. This way, the writer stays afresh and focused and little or no disturbance happens from the environment.

2. Think that you are doing a regular job

Sometime, when you think of you as a creator of great, quality, and creative content, you may be building pressure inside about your own work. There are some famous writers, including Stephen King, who think that they just do a regular job as everyone else. This way, the pressure is bit reduced and probability of getting a writer into writer’s block is lessen.

3. Adhere to deadlines

Most of the writers write in their own time and at their own ease. Since there is no governing body to monitor and manage their work, sometimes it is quite easy to get deviated. Therefore, the writer can have a writing partner and agree on mutual deadlines. This way, you are compelled to engage in writing in order to meet deadlines.

4. Working on multiple projects

This is one of the best ways to make sure that you do not run into writer’s block. In case if you run into writer’s block, diversity is a great way to get out of it. When you loose interest or inspiration to work on one writing project, you can always switch to another. This method will have no productivity losses and you will be working on something all the time.

5. Change your environment

If you have been writing in the same environment or arrangement for many years or months, changing the environment or arrangement may give you a boost. Whenever you feel like frustrated or bored, you can regain the energy by making small changes in the environment you work.

When I feel blocked as a writer, it generally comes down to a matter of trust. I’m not trusting that the words will come, that the ideas will flow, that the plot twists will materialize. Or I may be overly concerned about whether I deserve to be a writer. “My friends, family, editors and reviewers who love my books? What do they know?” Writer’s block is merely a loss of focus. When I start thinking that my writing is all about me (It’s not – it’s about the story) then I’m much more likely to get twisted up in a knot about it.

I don’t especially like the phrase “writer’s block.” I think of such episodes more as esteem leaks and ego attacks. We think of ego as a big, noisy space-consuming obnoxious way of being, but the other face of ego is the negative inner critic who likes to camp out on the front porch of the mind, dragging around a soggy blanket of idea-crushing poo and looking as pitiful as possible. Both faces of the crafty and slippery ego -the pitiful as well as the proud– must be handled adroitly if you want to ditch writer’s block.

Here are my three favorite techniques for blowing away those blocks!

Meditate

Yeah, I know. You can’t meditate. You mind races or you just go to sleep. Actually, though, noticing that your mind is racing is the first step. It shows you that you are not your mind. Your mind is a darned good tool, for sure, and it’s doing what nature intended it to do. It thinks–but then it doubts itself. Clever, eh? The perfect set-up for writer’s block, stage fright, insomnia, hypertension and a host of other ills. Secondly, oh sleepyhead, if you are going to sleep you probably need more sleep. Get some, I implore you! Not sleeping is a surefire way to drain your literary verve.

Just try it. There are dozens of good books on meditation; the best are short and simple. The benefits range from reduced stress, lower blood pressure and better concentration to achieving the ultimate state of inner peace. Hands down, meditation is the cheapest, most reliable and most readily available natural medicine on the planet.

As you gradually let go and relax, you can allow the yammering voice of your mind to drop away. And then you enter the land of great inspiration. It’s a realm of infinite possibility and freedom, from which great art, music and literature emerge, nascent and luminous. No kidding. You don’t have to make stuff up. It’s already there in you, waiting. Dive in!

Just a few minutes of letting go, doing nothing, and watching your breathing, is enough to make a big difference.

Educate

If you’re not sure whether you have anything worthy to add to the existing body of literature, go and find out if it’s true! Read everything you can get your hands on in the genre in which you want to write. And if you haven’t already done so, you might hire an editor to read your stuff and comment. A less expensive way to get feedback (albeit less professional feedback) is to join a writer’s group. Get your stuff looked at by others can be really helpful. Seek out a group of folks who are seriously working to improve their craft, not just munching on muffins and engaging in mutual praise. Go take a writing class and sit in the front row. People who sit in the front row learn more and apply it better.(They also get better grades, I’m told.) Hey, do what works.

Be honest with yourself and the people with whom you are meeting. If it looks like your writing needs work, be willing to pay your dues. You’re a writer! Know your craft.

Write Anyway

If you’ve tried the first two methods and your block still won’t budge, it’s time to blast. Do it anyway. Write anyway. If you want you can start every session with these words: “I don’t think I have a thing to say, and I’m going to write ANYWAY.” Then pick up your pen or put your digits on the keyboard. Write nonsense if you must, but get rolling. You know the drill: three pages a day everyday, no matter what. As American writer Mary Heaton Vorse famously said: “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.”

Look for stuff out there in the world until you find something really interesting, then write about it — music, art, cars, people, the way your cats curls up to nap. Enter that place you’ve been visiting in meditation, that center of deep trust, and let it do the writing for you. Remember this is not about you being anything or anybody in particular – a writer or even a good writer. It is about fully inhabiting a magical moment: the moment when the invisible makes itself known, when life expresses itself through you in words.

Amanda Lorenzo, the unblocked and uninhibited author of the Runt Farm book series for children, is a former educator, diversity trainer and software maven. Amanda may be found at the official Runt Farm web site, http://RuntFarm.com/.