From Brain Fog to Brilliance: 10 Creative Ways to Overcome Writer’s Block

Image created by the author using Dall-E 3

To offer my very personal experience with (prolonged) writer’s block/lack of inspiration:

On Sept. 6th, 2016, my father passed away very suddenly. He wasn’t sick. No one could have seen it coming.

Before that time, I was inspired routinely. It didn’t matter if I was at work or at home, in an appointment or on a hike.

Inspiration was almost second nature to me, and my creative output (original music and writing) reflected this. Looking back on a catalogue of somewhere between 100–200 songs and essays/poems/screenplays/prose galore, I sometimes wonder how I managed to fit it all in (time-wise) while having a full time job in healthcare, and falling in love with (most) everyone I’d meet.

In the years that passed since dad’s death, inspiration would seem to me as remote and unlikely a concept as ever.

Losing him was like losing a piece of my own creative spark; colors dulled, the melodies grew faint, and the words… well, they just refused to flow.

My once fertile, wide-open mind… reduced to a narrow strip of barren wasteland literally overnight.

Even communicating my thoughts eloquently to loved ones became challenging, to put it mildly.