 Hello, my name is Jackie, and welcome back to my channel. If you are new here, I'm an aspiring fiction author who does videos on writing and writing related things. So if that sounds interesting to you, please like and subscribe, and then you'll know every time a new video comes out. So today I want to talk about writer's block, and the fact that I don't like the term writer's block. And if you've been following me for a while, you might find this strange, because I am very much struggling with my current work in progress. However, I wouldn't say that I'm blocked. I would say that I've had conflicting priorities in my life, which means I haven't been able to give my book the time and energy it needs for me to break through this point where I'm stuck. I'd say I probably didn't do as much preparation as I could have before I started writing, and that's catching up to me now as I get to points in the book where there are big question marks about who certain characters are and where they are in their lives when they interact with the main protagonist. And I'd say that I'm struggling because I'm not practiced at this. This is not only a very challenging project for me, but it's also one of my first projects, so I haven't really built the skill of doing this again and again. I haven't built that muscle yet. So even though these are all things that are getting me stuck or blocking me, I wouldn't call them writer's block. But beyond the fact that I wouldn't use it to describe my current problems, why do I have a problem with the term? Well, there are a couple of reasons. One is that I think it can be a little bit of a cop-out, and I think this isn't just the case for writers. I think it's the case for all artists and creatives talking about being blocked. I think it's a convenient excuse. You can fall on when you don't want to work or the work isn't working. And you can cry writer's block or artist's block or creative block or I'm so blocked and people will sympathize because this is a term that's been used for decades at least. And there are many memes and comics and so on that they can relate to you with. But other non-creative professions don't have the luxury of being able to say they're blocked. If you are a teacher, you don't have teaching block and you don't use teaching block as an excuse not to go to school that day and teach your students. If you're a dentist, you don't have dentist block or tooth block and you don't use that as an excuse not to go to work. If you're a construction worker, you don't have construction block. I think you get where I'm going with this. So in that sense, I think it's a convenient excuse that other people will accept. And it means you can get out of doing the work without having to push yourself through it. Because you have this excuse that other professionals don't and other professionals still need a sharp work each day. The second reason I don't like the term is because it's so big and vague it can act as a catch-all for actual problems you're facing with your writing. And because of that, I think the term writer's block can act as a barrier that stops you from identifying what the actual problem is and how you can solve it. So if I go back to the reasons my book isn't currently working at the moment, if I just said I was suffering from writer's block then what do I do about that? Like hope I feel inspired again at some point and it comes back to me. Or if I acknowledge that, well, one of it is that I haven't been prioritizing the book. That's fine. If I want to solve that and I'm ready to change my priorities then I make the book a priority and I cut back on some other things that aren't as high a priority. If the problem is that I didn't do enough prep work and I don't know these other minor characters' stories and I don't know what their characters are like, well, maybe I take a step back from the actual writing and I go and do some of that work and I do some brainstorming and I think about who this person is and how they'd react in this scene rather than just staring at my computer going I haven't, I know there's a conversation here but I have no idea what they say. And if it's because I'm not an experienced fiction writer then I can acknowledge that I lack experience and it's going to be hard for a while but the only way to gain experience is to keep pushing away at it. I think if you label everything as writer's block it prevents you from being able to drill down to the problems themselves and figure out solutions. And that's not to say that there aren't problems that don't require you to take some time off. I think creative burnout is another problem. It's something that I was struggling with earlier this year and the only way through that was to actually take a couple of months off before I could get back to writing and admittedly I probably could have dealt with that better. I probably could have gone back sooner but in any case I needed some rest and trying to push myself to continue creating was extending the length of that burnout. But for me rather than calling that writer's block I'd call that burnout and I'd equate it to if someone works in construction and they get an injury and you know their arms in a sling and they can't actually do their job for a few weeks until their arms better. You know or if you're a dentist or a teacher and you have a migraine or the flu and you can actually not work at that time that's not teaching block or dentist block and the arm in the sling isn't construction block it's I have something going on and I need some rest. So in terms of your writing is not working and you just need a break I think that's valid but I don't think writer's block is the best descriptor for that. I think something along the lines of creative burnout or fatigue or just feeling completely tapped out and you need to replenish your creative well. I think those are much more accurate descriptions and they're much more constructive in the sense that they give you a hint about what you can do to solve them but that's just my two cents. So let me know what you think. Do you use the term writer's block and what specifically does it mean to you or do you agree that writer's block is a bit of a catchall term that probably causes more problems than it solves? Please let me know in the comments and I will see you next time. Bye.