Overcoming writer’s block

I’ve been thinking about what to write, as I’ve pretty much covered it all, to a lesser or greater extent, and then the obvious hit me: overcoming writer’s block. I’m sure there are many of you who are staring at the screen, right now, and wanting to write, but you don’t know what to write about or how to start. Well, the best way to get your ideas flowing is just to start writing stuff down. Whatever comes to mind, don’t hold back. Only the Lord knows what’s going on in your mind (well, and AI just might know it soon, too).

You don’t need a piece of paper; you can use notes on your phone, even your laptop. Send emails with ideas to yourself or print out a manuscript, an article, whatever it is you’re working on and put down the comments in the text. That’s what I do. Some people seem intrigued when I do it (I sometimes edit my manuscript in restaurants, for example), but it only goes to show how much our society has degraded that working on your manuscript makes you look weird. Anyway, who cares about them. 

Now, think about how many people around the world have these little epiphanies in their lives, write them down, and then don’t know what to do with them? Imagine a platform for exchanging ideas, as they happen, aimed at innovators, creators, writers, etc. Social media for creative thinkers ― not cat videos getting 100 likes in the first minute. Instantaneous communication between individuals, sharing their ideas, putting the puzzle together, potentially changing the world in the process.

No red tape, no bureaucratic jargon. How many people in the developing world are unable to share their ideas with others, because there is no platform serving that specific purpose? A North Korean living in Seoul writes down a brilliant idea and uploads it to the idea-sharing platform, but there is a crucial piece missing; someone in Africa sees the Korean’s idea, and expands on it; finally, there’s a girl in India who completes the thought process ― and a world-changing idea is born.

I know what you are probably thinking: well, who takes credit for the idea, then? What if someone steals the idea? What if someone has a nefarious agenda? I never claimed it would be easy ― surely, the benefits outweigh the risks? So much potential is wasted on this planet. And it often is because our ideas just fade away because we don’t write them down and share them with the others. How others use our ideas – that’s beyond our control and we aren’t responsible for their actions. We aren’t responsible for saving the world. We can only fully, truly, control our own actions.

If you’re like me, your mind is like a highway or, better yet, traveling across infinity. You have ideas all the time. You write them down with the world just being background noise.

And by all means, keep writing down even the stupidest and most random ideas. You never know how your mind’s going to link them into a coherent whole. I’ve developed my contacts across the world as a result of writing about English language teaching, geopolitics, and even Polish culinary tastes (hello schabowy, kaczka and barszcz). I’m even in the hall of fame of a honorary citizen of Seoul and Harvard grad, Casey Lartigue, for writing what he says is the best article about him. He is pretty famous in South Korea for helping North Korean defectors (it’s a preferable term to refugees), even though he wouldn’t use the word fame.

When I worked in China, I had an extraordinary exchange of views with a Chinese psychic. I asked her about hell and she told me it’d be being stuck in a musical like Cell Block Tango (if it’s even a musical) for eternity. Well, that comment, right there, was inspirational for me.

Whatever works for you, whatever inspires you, it can be something you least expect, hold on to that, write it down, and you won’t need writing workshop experts telling you how to rekindle your spark of creativity ever again.