The 1 Creative Hack that Eliminated My Writer’s Block
You’re writing your uni essay that’s due in two days.
You’ve spent literally zero hours on it because you were grabbing drinks with your homies, binging on Netflix, or procrastinating — which led to more drinks and Netflix binges.
All you got is a beautifully white Word doc on your computer screen with absolutely zero ideas popping up in that brain of yours.
Writer’s block or just stupidity?
Could be both honestly.
But I think I’ve found a small hack.
And the answer is not more drinks, surprisingly.
An Artist Quoting the Documentary Quoting an Artist
For people in the Breakin scene, I’m sure you’ve heard of the name “B-boy Menno.” He is the first three-time champion of the Red Bull BC One World Finals, a world-class b-boy, entrepreneur, painter, and photographer. If I’m not mistaken, I believe Poe One coined Menno’s style as an algorithm. To the ordinary eye, he literally looks like he’s just rolling around. But put on your Breakin glasses and you’ll be hypnotised by his endless flows, complexity, originality, creativity, and just the overall artistry that he fabricated into reality.
It makes sense why Menno’s style was compared to an algorithm. My creative guess is that if you don’t understand his numbers, it’s hard to understand the beauty of the formulas.
But if you do?
Be dazzled by the razzmatazz of his “mathematical” details.
But this isn’t the main reason why I appreciate Menno.
It’s because he’s an artist on and off the dance floor and he quoted a documentary that quoted an artist that helped me overcome my own writer blocks.
Menno watched a documentary that quoted Picasso saying how Picasso would just put a few scruffs on a canvas and start painting from there. It’s toilsome to visualize an idea if you’re strictly looking at a blank canvas. Pretty much saying, it’s better to have something than nothing on that canvas. You could end up with a house painting from initially starting out with a few tiny scruffs.
So he’s basically saying:
Just do something.
And that stuck with me.
Honestly, that’s how I even started writing this article. I just ate lunch and had zero ideas on what to write. So I just started writing a word for the title and somehow I ended up here.
I used this technique on days where I feel like I have a creative block. Whether it’s writing or dancing, this little hack delivered countless amounts of creative sparks that lasted a lifetime.
I know this hack sounds easier said than done.
But it does work. At least for me.
It’s better than having nothing, right?
The Starting 50%
If you read all the way down here, I want to say thank you! So here’s a little bonus inspirational story that someone told me back in high school for encouraging creativity and productivity.
Not going to lie, I just remembered this story now as I was writing this article — actual living proof that you can get sh*t done by literally putting a word down.
Anyways, the story goes like this:
In this teacher’s class, no one was doing jack sh*t. I guess he’s one of those teachers that didn’t give a flying f*ck about what his students did in class. However, he still had to assign an essay assignment to his students. While the majority of the students were fooling around, only one student took action for the assigned task.
Guess what he did?
He wrote only one word on his paper.
The teacher noticed the student’s “effort” and snatched his paper to show to the rest of the class. He thought he was being punished. However, it was quite the opposite.
The teacher said,
“Guys, I want you to look at his paper. He has completed 50% of the work. How you may ask?
Well, he accomplished the hardest 50% of the work which is to just start. Well done!”
What an unexpected motivational speech from a teacher who didn’t care about his class. Well done to you too sir.
I guess it’s time to get to work.
We can grab drinks and binge on Netflix after putting a word on that beautifully white Word doc.
Have you ever had writer’s block before? How did you overcome it? Let me know in the comments below! I would love to hear about your creative hacks too!
Peace!
Contact Me
- LinkedIn: Erryl Ho
- Instagram: @dirteeeee
- Website: https://www.errylclassicz.com/
- Email: sendtoerrylho@gmail.com
