What affects every artist or writer from time to time? It’s a silent killer to productivity, and it can often lead to procrastination. It can sometimes be demotivating, and it’s something not everyone recognizes.

It’s called writer’s block; It’s a creative slowdown. While it mainly affects writers, it also affects students at one point or another. Some more frequently than others.

And indeed it is. Writer’s block is a component to the writing process. It can apply to story-writing or school essays.

There is often a misconception with writer’s block being the difficulty of coming up with original ideas and trying to perfect it at that very moment. However, it’s not exclusive to that definition.

English teacher Mark Indreika provided some more instances of writer’s block that are prevalent in the classroom, and some of his most useful tips in finding a solution to writer’s block.

“I think writer’s block is a natural consequence of the writing process,” Indreika said.

From the perspective of two students, the definition of writer’s block isn’t far off from Indreika’s definition.

Freshman Grayson Gabb believes something similar. “Writer’s block is the inability to come up with more things to put down or say for you to get your point across,” Gabb says.

Junior Colin Mukushina has a creative analogy to define writer’s block that all writers and students can remember.

“It’s the part of the writing and creative process in which you’re trouble starting a car. It’s sort of the metaphor I come up with where you’re just trying to think of something, but nothing’s coming to your head at the moment that really works,” Mukushina said.

One of the keys to successfully confronting writer’s block is to recognize that you are stuck and you are in that fear. It’s not easy, but trusting yourself to admit that you’re stuck goes a long way. When you do that, it’ll be easier for your mind to resolve it.

“I guess sometimes people get an idea of what they want to write, and then they don’t know how to start,” Indreika said. “I think I would define writer’s block as a fear of writing something bad. Basically a fear of writing something bad that actually paralyzes you from writing.”

Some say going for a walk or taking a shower will help deal with writer’s block. I argue that isn’t the case as it seems like an excuse to avoid it. You should attack it head-on with this solution.

It just comes from getting a blank sheet of paper or opening a blank computer document and just writing whatever is on your mind; whether that happened throughout the day or a small, lackluster, unoriginal premise for a creative story. It might sound awkward, but trusting the process in yourself will only make it work.

“What helps me is I just get a blind piece of paper and I just start sketching stuff out and do kind of little mind circles and arrows and just write down ideas. And then usually, I can work something out,” Indreika said.

“One thing I do that sometimes makes it a bit easier is write down anything, no matter how stupid or bad it will be. Write down anything related to that topic and now you’ll start to get your brain going. You’ll start to get ideas and you’ll start to figure out how to refine or choose something better,” Mukushina said.