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Comment by manifestsilence | Hacker News Reader

I love poetry, but think this advice is slightly off. A better way to get un-stuck is free-writing. Just write whatever comes to mind without stopping. If you hesitate, just write "I don't know what to write" - anything to keep writing.

If you can sustain this for twenty minutes, you are now immune to writer's block. You know you can always write. This shifts the question to what to write. You find you can sculpt these chains of drivel. Eventually you start to generate real ideas again.

Even if you never use the things you write in this way, it can be hugely freeing to the mind as you set aside the other things that were distracting you by putting them onto the page and are then clear to focus again on the problem at hand.

This comes from the Artist's Way, which advocates doing this daily as the primary activity of the book / workshop.

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Different approaches. Poetry structure can be all over the place from almost non-existent to something like a sonnet. The power in poetry I think is trying to find surprising imagery to express the point, and that shift in perception is what this article is arguing for.

Is there value in free writing? Of course. I've done morning pages. I've also done free writing when struggling with problems in multiple realms (code and prose/novel writing). But sometimes it simply doesn't push you hard enough compared to the forced perception change.

You can certainly TRY to create that change in free writing, but then are you REALLY free writing, since you are limiting what you put on the page?

Yeah, fair enough. I have found sonnets and sestinas to be really interesting ways to explore ideas, too, because of their structure.

I suppose the level and kinds of restrictions you self-impose affect the kind of space you explore. Both are useful.

Within free writing, even, there are different levels of "free", all the way from don't stop to remember spelling of a word or ever hit backspace, to allowing minor corrections and subtly directing your train of thought towards a goal but not allowing significant pauses to think, which gets into more like draft writing.

Usually I've only written poems when the seed of an idea happens to already be there I want to write as a poem. I'll try that as a way to get unstuck as suggested. Seems interesting. :)

>You find you can sculpt these chains of drivel. Eventually you start to generate real ideas again.

This is the strategy I follow when posting.

Haha, yes! It only becomes problematic when I click post before doing the editing step...

It depends. The article is advocating for writing poetry if you are struggling to communicate. That’s not the same as struggling to write.

“Writer’s block” covers a wide range of definitions from “I don’t know what to write about” to “I don’t believe I even can even write a grocery list.” There is often a large psychological component. Free writing can help in some cases, but in other cases the free writing can be repetitive and uncreative, possibly exacerbating the underlying psychological issue.

Here's an easy way to always have something to write about:

Step 1: Try new framework/language/dev-tool/library.

Step 2: Make bullet point list of pain points.

Step 3: Come back to the list anytime you need to write something and expand on why the thing sucks so much and how everyone involved must've been dropped on their heads as a child.

It's easy to overcome writer's block with rage and the drive that people need to know how much you hate the thing you hate. Bonus points for making it as personal as possible.

I love this idea and I really appreciate you sharing it!

I swear, one of my largest struggles with writing is finding exactly what to put on the page, as well as putting it on the page in the first place.

Sometimes I write a lot of words, rewrite them, don’t like them and then delete them because I don’t think they’re worth saying or they can’t establish the point well enough for me to feel like they are worth keeping.

Perhaps I should simply put them in an archive instead to come back to later and see if I can refine them.

Absolutely! I still tend to stop and edit and overthink way too much to finish longer things, so tomorrow I'm starting https://nanowrimo.org/ to attempt to actually finish a novel draft without any second guessing. It's in the same spirit as the freewriting exercise, just extended to a month. :)

I did this for three days back in highschool: https://serprex.github.io/w/50k=0 (took some breaks to eat, sleep, attend school)

It permanently changed the way I write, perhaps for the worse

Hey, thanks for sharing!

I recently read A.R. Ammons Tape for the Turn of the Year (1965) and it is composed in much the same way (although it is a little more polished ;p).

Wow, that's an epic freewrite! Some really great phrases in there, too

Isn’t it perverse that we need such optimization techniques so that we can sit at a desk all day.

I think it’s a wonderful technique but it makes me wonder why and if we’re just -not built for this-.

It is if you're using it to force yourself to do something soul sucking.

It isn't if you are using it to give yourself the discipline to focus on completing a challenge you care about.

I agree, totally. But I think that 20 minutes of journaling per day is really valuable even if it's not for work optimization.

I think the inherent constraint that exists in the poem structure can lead to the stimulation of your creativity, breaking down that "i´m stuck" feeling. i love to write Haikus (even if I suck at it) because that constraint is even more tight. i feel more relaxed and creative after several minutes of strugling to come with a decent haiku that fits the syllable count than after a session of free writing.

> If you hesitate, just write "I don't know what to write" - anything to keep writing.

But don't use: "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy"

Heeeeeeeeere's Johnny!!!!!

Do you think handwriting or typing makes a difference ?

A lot of people say handwriting is fundamentally better, but I much prefer typing because I can keep up with the flow of my thoughts more, and find I catch a higher percentage of the thoughts that are occurring. YMMV

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