Why You Have Writer’s Block: The Idea Issues

Two most common causes of writer’s block: (1) having too few ideas, (2) having too many ideas.

Think about the last time you write an essay.

Let’s assume you wanted to write about habits.

Your mind drifted to the solid morning routine you’ve built for years. Maybe you can write about that? You’re not sure people will be interested.

Maybe you could talk about how the formation of one habit leads to another. How making a bed motivates you to exercise more. Hmm, you don’t have enough material to make that story work.

You went through a few cycles of thoughts like these, feeling a bit demoralized. Then conclude that “I have no interesting ideas to write about. I’d better give up today and have some ice cream”.

Sometimes you have the opposite problems; you have too many ideas.

Say you’ve read countless books about habits. You can talk about the brain dopamine circuitry and its role in motivation. You want to link that to how children learn and how you teach your child to form a habit of collecting their toys. Perhaps you’d touch on your parenting philosophy, which is a mix of incentivization and reasoning to help your child form habits. Yada yada.

Your mind is racing with a deluge of interconnected ideas, but you can’t focus on one. You start rambling on papers. Pages go by and you can’t end the article!

Whether you “have too little of good ideas” or “have too many ideas”, the results are the same; you end up with writers’ block.

Fix the “idea” issue and you’ll be writing like a pro.

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