It happens to the best of us

There are days I am full of ideas. Songs, arrangement ideas and blog posts just ooze out of me. It’s like sun is shining, even if it’s not, nothing can keep me down. Surprisingly it seems these days come more often, the harder I work. Then there are those days where I just get by. I get the stuff done I need to do (just about) and that’s it, nothing more, no fireworks. But that’s fine as well, you can’t rock the world everyday. Then once in a while I get the days that I just hit the rock wall… No matte what I try to do, nothing gets done. And it’s not for the lack of trying, I don’t give in easily.

These days can be really a big struggle. They can even knock down your self-confidence pretty bad. Some people might say it sounds a lot like writer’s block, but the thing is, I don’t believe in writer’s block… Well, kind of… We all get these days, when the creative process just does not happen. The thing is, you CAN work through it. I have two tricks that rarely fail. The first one is a simple one, just go for a walk. Fresh air and change of scenery always helps. The trick is to make sure after the walk you sit down to write again and not let “the writer’s block”, which I by the way believe is just a mental block, to get the best of you. Show it that you are in charge!

The second trick is my favourite one and it has completely turned around things for me several times in the past. You see, as you might know I write a lot. I write songs all the time, I write blog posts every day. And to keep up with my schedule, I cannot afford to have “writer’s block”. So what do I do if I can’t come up with anything to write about? I write about the fact that I can’t come up with anything to write about 😉 Sounds silly, I know. But it really works!

You can start by trying to describe the situation where you are and why you can’t write. How does it make you feel that you can’t write? Write about it! Sometimes these things will be enough to get you writing, and once you are back writing things start to flow out of you again. And on other times the writing about why you can’t write might actually turn into something great on its own 🙂 For example I wrote a song called Compulsive songwriting disorder. This song was all about me trying to write a song and nothing was coming out, so I started to give out to my imaginary “muse”. I’ll Include the song here for you to hear, it was on my first album “Northern Boy” that came out March 2014.

Also what you are reading right now, is a blog post about me breaking out of that mental block. And guess what, as much as I stared at that empty document on my computer, once I decided to write about how some days it happens to the best of us, the words just started to flow 🙂 So go for it, write a song about how you can’t write a song, paint a picture of what it feels like not to be able to write. Write a chapter about the desperation of when the words just don’t come to you. But what ever you do, never give in to your mental block. Beat it!

Do you suffer from writer’s block? How do you deal with it?

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE