How Internal Interruptions Cause Writer’s Block

Internal interruptions often can cause writer’s block. This usually involves stress, lack of sleep or ADHD issues. In such cases, the block has to be resolved by making physical changes to oneself.

You can’t “think” yourself out of an internal interruption like you can if you have a brain freeze or a poor story idea. Instead, you actually need to adjust your lifestyle.

Too tired to write
If you feel too tired to write, ask why. Maybe you’re not getting enough sleep. Possibly your partner is on a different sleep schedule than you and so wakes you up at night.

The solutions are to set aside more time for sleep and to gradually readjust your sleep cycle so it matches your partner’s. Yes, more time for sleep likely means less time for writing. But if you want to be a writer, you’ll need to make sacrifices, so you’ll have to cut out some activities to make time for both sleep and writing.

Of course, you don’t have to set aside an hour or even 15 minutes a day to writing. Instead, write in small amounts during the day. Start with the most basic of outlines. Fill it in and expand it bit by bit through the day. Or write a line at a time. Start with one sentence then through the day think about what you’ll write for a second line, write that down, then move on to your third line. You won’t be as prolific as the person who sets aside an hour a day to write, but you are writing, which you weren’t doing before.

Too stressed to write
Stress from daily life – bills to pay, toxic work environment, a serious family illness, feeling overwhelmed because too many responsibilities demand your attention all at once – also can inhibit your writing.

The key is to breaking the stress block is to turn stress into your writing “friend.” On paper, identify and visualize the thoughts and emotions that vex you. Through honest writing, you can explore solutions to those matters by structuring your ideas or having a protagonist experience them vicariously for you.

Refusing to address troubling thoughts by putting them “out of mind” or denying them assuredly leads to ever-increasing strain and stress. Though counterintuitive to some, when enough time is spent massaging troubling thoughts, the pain and tension they generate actually will be lessened and even alleviated.

Too attention-deficit to write
ADHD is trickier to address, but it can be. I’m not a doctor and certainly don’t know anything about any of my reader’s specific conditions, but there are plenty of medications that help most people with ADHD to focus. There’s no shame in taking them. I have an editing client in Scotland, who has attention deficit issues, but once on the right prescription was able to crank out some exceptional writing in a short amount of time. Then Britain had a shortage of ADHD meds in late 2023, and he couldn’t get his refilled. His productivity suffered. Three months later, the shortage was over, and he was back to writing a chapter every 2-3 days. Medication to help you focus is something to at least discuss with your doctor.

The point is if you have internal interruptions that prevent you from otherwise being a productive writer, you have to research and find ways to address them. If you don’t, you’re not so much suffering from writer’s block as giving up on your dream. You deserve better than that.

More articles that’ll inspire you to write:
• Time spent writing is a productive time 
• Don’t wait for writing inspiration to strike 
• There’s no need to ‘want’ to be a writer. Simply write. 
• Achieve your writing vision by setting goals 
• To write is to realize my destiny 

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out my writing guidebook about writer’s block: