Writer’s Block generally happens when you’re starting a new writing project. You face the blank screen, and in come mountains of inner demons in their many forms and varieties: overwhelm, self-doubt, laziness, and procrastination.

However, it’s actually possible to get stuck at any point in the writing process, including the revision process, where you already have a draft.

Consider the following situation: Your draft needs more work, and you know it. There’s a big problem, and either it’s painfully obvious what the problem is, or you have absolutely no idea what it is. Either way, you have a sinking feeling in your chest any time you think about the writing project. You are avoiding working on it in more or less subtle ways - heck, you don’t even want to look at it. Above all, you can’t figure out how to move the draft towards completion.

Does this situation sound familiar?

This is a painful place to be, and it’s a life-or-death, make-it-or-break-it moment for any writing project. But trust me, if you’ve made it this far, there’s something good in there. The good news is that the Hostwriting process can help you get unstuck. In particular, this exercise can be used to help you get unstuck and finish that draft. Do this exercise one step at a time.

Steps:

  1. List the points you are trying to make in your writing. Write them as brief theses - perhaps one or two sentences, e.g. "Economic development requires technology-friendly political policies.”
  2. Once you feel you’ve listed all of the points you want to make, order them in a logical order. If you’re using a word processor, re-order the points; if you’re using paper for this exercise, put numbers next to each point.
  3. Associate each point with a different color. Choose legible, distinct colors.
  4. Re-read your draft, noticing each time you make one of the points that you listed, and color coding the relevant sentences or paragraphs. If you find that there are points you want to make, but didn’t address, make a note of that at the bottom of the document, using the appropriate color code.
  5. Cut and paste each section so that the draft matches the order you decided to present your ideas in.

This will result in a messy document. That’s okay - the mess makes the implicit problems explicit, and will move you towards a clear solution! Here are the remaining steps you may want to take to clean up the post: