Overcoming Writer’s Block

What is writer’s block, anyway?

After completing Imaginative Storm Writer Training, Journalist and screenwriter Abdullah Erakat said, “After Imaginative Storm, writer’s block is a myth.” But is it?

You may be sitting at your desk, staring at your computer screen, desperate to get on with your project, or start it, or finish it. And nothing is coming. That blankness certainly feels like a block.

Or, you may be writing and deleting, writing and deleting, because nothing is good enough. That frustration certainly feels like a block.

That’s the thing about writer’s block: you can’t do it, but you can’t give up wanting to do it. You feel powerless. The good news is, you’re not powerless! You can do what Abdullah did and write what you don’t know.

Writing What You Don’t Know

When you’re suffering from writer’s block, usually you know what you want to write (this book or story, that poem) but you just don’t know what to write. The wonderful thing about feeling confident in writing what you don’t know is . . . you guessed it, that you don’t need to know what to write!

Imagine that the writing you want to do is a path across countryside. Every time you try to head down that path, the ogre named Writer’s Block leaps out at you with a club and bashes you on the head. So, what if you don’t head straight down the path of that thing you want to write?

Meander off the path by playing around a little, and rediscover the fun and exploration of writing. Widen the path by using prompts that give you a different perspective on the line you’re following. Before you know it, the ogre is just a tiny hamster-sized little ogre growling and snarling in your rear-view mirror.

During one Weekly Writing Circle, Patty Graves felt blocked, so she decided to write about her block, and came up with this perfect haiku in the 10 minutes.

Nothing is coming.

Foreboding of my failures

Swallowing me whole.

Hey presto—block gone. Patty wrote something that we’re still quoting five years later. You could try that tactic too.

Overcome Writer’s Block for Good

The Imaginative Storm method equips you with a powerful set of tools to take into the rest of your writing life. You’ll learn how to use prompts to spark creativity, how to use a timer to banish your rational mind’s urge to “write well,” how to transform your inner critic into your inner coach, how to find your own authentic writing voice.

Best of all, you’ll understand what it means to write what you don’t know.

Come Write with Us!

Everything we do in the Imaginative Storm is suitable for writers across the spectrum: from those who consider themselves beginners to published writers with many titles to their name.

  • Join our Prompt of the Week Zoom to write to a random prompt for 10 minutes! We usually have some newcomers, and we will welcome you. It’s on Thursday at 3 pm PT / 6 pm ET, for an hour.

  • Explore our Circle site, where we publish the raw material we write in 10 minutes. You’ll get an idea of what’s possible, and how we support one another with appreciation rather than competition or criticism.

  • Get our Daily Prompt delivered straight to your inbox every morning.

  • Check out our vast archive of image prompts on YouTube. We guide you step by step in working with the prompt, share what we did in our Saturday session, and time you for 10 minutes while you write.

  • Let us guide you step by step through the 10 sessions of the Imaginative Storm method, in our self-paced online course Write What You Don’t Know: Imaginative Storm Writer Training. The course includes a monthly live Zoom with Imaginative Storm co-founders Allegra Huston and James Navé. Ask us anything!

  • Sign up for one of our live workshops, on Zoom or in person, and explore the memoir, or fictional story, you might write.

  • Order our book Write What You Don’t Know: 10 Steps to Writing with Confidence, Energy, and Flow.

  • Subscribe to Imaginative Storm on Substack for our newsletter with thoughts on writing.

We hope to see you.

What People Are Saying About imaginative Storm

Testimonials from 12 members of the Imaginative Storm writing community

  • “You helped me overcome my critic. I went from being a fearful writer to a joyful one.”

    — Corinne Crone, intimacy coach

  • "After Imaginative Storm, writer's block is a myth."

    Abdullah H. Erakat, journalist and screenwriter

  • “This wave of words came in 10 minutes in a beautifully playful space. I find the Imaginative Storm method intriguing, freeing, well-seasoned and lovingly crafted. I am delighted, surprised and nourished every time I jump into it!”

    — Esme Olivia, singer/songwriter

  • "The Imaginative Storm helped me go places I would not normally consider going and kept me from overthinking when I got there. The number of poems from the Imaginative Storm that have been published speaks to the success of the method and its benefit to me as a poet.

    — Louis Faber, poet

  • Wendy Shaw

    "It's like discovering a part of yourself you didn't know existed. What a gift!"

    Wendy Shaw, visual artist

  • “It’s life-changing. Even if I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing.”

    Deborah Williams, writer and educator

  • “I am brought ever closer to something Carl Jung said many years ago: ‘Until we make the unconscious conscious, we will live our life and we will call it fate.’ I feel the Imaginative Storm process is ever getting me closer and closer to a more conscious understanding of my life.”

    Dan Stenabaugh, writer

  • “The Imaginative Storm process has given me the freedom to tap so many aspects of myself. It’s so easy to get stuck trying to write about events until you shake up the brain cells and spill them out in a fresher way."

    Darlene VanderHoop, writer and yoga instructor

  • Alice W. Meadows

    “Writing what I don't know has given me more confidence and freedom and flow to write what I do know. It's like having a base camp to set out on writing adventures."

    Alice W. Meadows, writer

  • "What this process teaches us to do is to be with the percolating of all the chaos inside us. It's raw, but the pen keeps going and amazing things arise."

    Arlene Shapiro, performer and writer

  • "Imaginative Storm opens up this creative cave, gives me a shovel and shows me where to dig. It says, ‘Look at this gem! Look at that gem!’ Before I know it, I’m mining words that tumble out on to the page."

    Sandi Dittmer, writer