“I can’t believe I’ve been staring at this screen for an hour and haven’t written a single word!”

It’s something that happens to all writers. Writer’s Block.

Your creativity dries up. You just can’t quite grasp the theme for the piece of copy you are working on, or the words to describe a scene or character just aren’t coming to you.

Until recently, I’d sit there for ages, typing, then deleting sentence after sentence, not quite making progress, and getting more and more frustrated. Then I read a little piece about how the left and the right side of the brain work, and an idea from another writer sprang into my head.

Give the logical side of your brain a workout, let it take over for a while giving your creative side of the brain a bit of a rest to work on a subconscious level.

Now, I did find a very complex method of doing this in a book I am currently reading, but decided a simpler method was in order.

These are the steps, and you will find them quite easy.

1. grab a thick novel, something from Stephen King is good

2. randomly flick to a page, write down the left hand page number on a piece of paper

3. randomly flick to a page, write down the right hand page number on a piece of paper

4. repeat (2) and (3)  25 times, keeping a count in your head.  If you lose count, start from the beginning again.

5. once you have your 50 total page number, manually add then up

6. take this final number, and divide it by the total pages in the book

7. write down the second paragraph from the page equal to the result of (6) on a piece of paper backwards.  e.g. reverse letter order from the end of the paragraph

This may sound weird, but I have now tried this a few times, and the clarity to the creative juices it causes is, well, remarkable.

So, next time you are stuck on a blank screen, trying to get started, or working on that elusive heading or paragraph, give it a go and let me know how you got on.