Twenty suggestions to help you get over writer's block
These are suggestions on how to get the wheels turning when you're in a writing rut. They can help provide inspiration and encouragement.
1. Read poetry and other pieces of literature, especially the works of great authors.
2. Devote yourself to a cause. Use the experiences as basis for more writing.
3. Think about serious contemporary and philosophical problems, and write down your ideas.
4. Grab a good college-level dictionary, and find words that interest you. Write them down. Play word association.
5. Write in your diary. Don't hold back. Be fearless in your self-revelation.
6. Sit outside and write down what you observe. Watch people, nature, traffic patterns, whatever happens to be going on.
7. Listen to music, preferably by "serious" songwriters.
8. Read quotations.
9. Play word games. Think of a word you like or that sparks your interest, and then try to find rhymes. Also find words that sound similar or have similar spelling patterns, prefixes, suffixes, etc e.g. bottle, battle; sympathy, symphony; daybreak, heartbreak, etc. Write these all down then see if you can find logical links between them and make a poem out of the ideas that they produce.
10. Go for a walk in a part of town that you usually don't frequent. Keep a notebook with you to write your feelings and thoughts.
11. Keep a notebook and write down thoughts and lines during periods you're sitting with nothing to do: riding the bus, waiting in the doctor's office, waiting for class to begin, etc.
12. Browse the contests as AllPoetry.com and take up one of the challenges.
13. Commit to write a poem a day for a week no matter how bad it is. Don't go to sleep without having written a poem.
14. Show poems you've already written to people you know will like them. It'll make you less afraid to commit words to paper. (You can get critiques once you've written a NEW batch of poems).
15. Read sites and books which contain ideas that intrigue you. Myself, I used to read the New Catholic Encyclopedia for inspiration (I don't have access to it anymore). You might prefer the Oxford Companion to Philosophy, or a sociology textbook. Browse through the reference section of your local library.
16. Read books and magazine articles on how to write, e.g. Writer's Handbook, Writer's Digest, etc.
17. Talk about writing with other writers. Join a group, either on-line or in real life. Surround yourself with creative people.
18. Go to church or other house of worship. Some of my best ideas happen while I engage in communal worship.
19. If you can't write something creative, e.g. poetry, write a piece of non-fiction: an opinion piece or an informative article.
20. Laugh. Watch a funny movie or read some comics.
