How to Beat Writer's Block

Writer's block happens all the time. It is almost always a signal that you aren't as mentally prepared to write as you should be.

Ask yourself: "What is my purpose in writing?"

Say, for example, you are writing to inform your customers of a new product your company is offering. Your purpose is: "I want to tell you about an exciting new product we offer." The letter builds off of this. But let's go further. What is the product, and why should the reader care? Most importantly: What do you want them to do about it? Answer these questions and pretty soon you have the outline, and possibly first draft, of your letter.

Writer's block can usually be solved by answering these questions:

Who? What? When? Where? Why?

Of the five questions, "Why?" is the most important. Writing without a purpose is, by definition, pointless.

"Who?" is an important, but often overlooked question. Who are you writing to? Visualize them in your mind and then write to them. If it's a large group of people, find someone you know who would belong to that group, and then picture that person in your mind as you write. In this way, writing becomes like a comfortable conversation.

"What?" is another important question to answer. What exactly are you trying to say? Write it down. If you find you can't, then you've also found the reason for your writer's block. You'll need to take some time to better formulate your thoughts before the writing can continue.

Some projects might not have a "when?" or "where?" to answer. So be it. As soon as you can get back to writing, do it. But when the words won't come, it means that somewhere there is a question you need to get answered.

On the other hand

Sometimes the trick to beating writer's block is to simply get words on the page.

Write out exactly what information you want to get across to your reader:

"I want to tell you about the new service my company offers."

"I want to convince you to buy a new car."

"I want you to donate money to our organization."

Make sure you are as detailed as possible. Write it down like this:

"I want you to know -- about our product."

"I want you to feel -- about it."

"I want you to do -- about it."

Once you have written down everything (and I mean everything) you want your writing to communicate, you can revise it into a more appropriate form. You'll often find that working through this process provides you with a fairly good rough draft. Most importantly: It breaks your writer's block.

Andy is a professional freelance writer specializing in web and marketing copy. He maintains a site at http://greenbaycopywriting.com and also at http://gbcopywriting.wordpress.com
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