The Letter Method - How I Overcome Writer's Block

Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash

It’s funny how writing can be really difficult or really easy depending on the environment in which you write.

I don’t mean the physical environment (though that can have a big effect too!), I’m more thinking about the context or situation or even app you might be using to write.

If I open up a fancy writing app, start a brand new empty document, and set out to write a new masterful essay that I hope will revolutionize people’s thinking and change their perspective forever, and will become a piece of writing I can refer to and share for years to come… guess what I’ll be staring at after a couple hours?

You guessed it: a fancy writing app with a brand new document that is STILL completely empty. The weight of the writing feels like too much and it will likely feel too difficult to even get started.

But put me in another situation, like a good friend asking me questions about a topic I know well? I might send 50 or more text messages over the span of 20 minutes in that conversation. I’ll chat your ear off with the words I’m typing, message after message without me even realizing how much I’m “writing” in our conversation.

One part of that is that I happen to have the type of brain that really loves helping people by sharing things I’ve learned. So I get a lot of JOY when I’m able to help someone directly.

But another big part is that it lowers the expectations, it lowers the pressure, the weight. I don’t have to writing something masterful and brilliant. I’m just writing something helpful for a friend.

When I was writing my book, Extra Focus, I often would start a chapter by putting someone’s name at the top. I would start with “Hey John,” which was always the name of a real person I knew, and then I would proceed to pretend I was just writing them a letter or an email answering the question I hoped to answer in that chapter of my book.

It wasn’t perfect writing, but it WAS WRITING! Pretending to write a letter helped me power through the blank page and get words on paper.

You can even take this to the extreme and write inside your email app, or your text messaging app. Maybe you create a free Google Voice number and start texting it your writing, pretending you’re helping a friend but actually getting those cloudy concepts in your brain out into actual words in the real world.

Whatever it takes to make those words real.

P.S. Next week, October 7th at 12pm PT / 3pm (ET), we’re doing a live Q&A for anyone!

Normally we do these once a month for our paid subscribers, but this event will be open for anyone to attend! We’ll be chatting all things ADHD + Writing and sharing what works for us and answering all your questions! We can’t wait to see you all there.

Make sure to subscribe so you’ll get the reminder email next week with the link!