9 Genius-Approved Ways to Avoid Writer's Block

Okay, maybe some of these tricks aren't that genius (building your office on a giant Lazy Susan, for instance). Dig in as Will and Mango investigate the tricks artists have used to claw their way out of creative slumps.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
I guess what will? What's that? Mango? So when I
was in high school, I went and I met this
relative who was in advertising, just to learn more about
it and to see if I wanted to be a copywriter.
And he warned me that the most terrifying thing I'd
have to face every day was a blank page. Like
the hardest part of the job is coming up with
fresh ideas every single day. And at the time, you know,

(00:23):
I was cocky and I just kind of laughed. But
if you've ever suffered from writer's luck, you know how
daunting just starting a new project or coming up with
new ideas can be. Oh definitely. And you know, I
think about somebody like Harper Lee, of course from my
home state. Not everything has to be about your state
of Delaware on the show Mango. But you know, after
writing to Kill a Mockingbird, she had such a hard

(00:46):
time writing, and it was it was almost like she
was looking for distractions. And I found this great quote
from her. I had not seen this before, but but
she says, I found I can't write. I have about
three personal friends who keep dropping in for a cup
of coffee. I've tried getting up at six, but then
all the six o'clock Risers congregate. I mean, if you've

(01:06):
got three friends coming over for a coffee, like, don't
make coffee, make a smaller pot. But you know, writer's
block is really hard, and I've always been amazed by
like the people who can just crank out copy, like
Jerry Seinfeld, Like do you know his trick? I don't
think so, what is it? So? Jerry's a prolific writer
and he was asked how he stayed so productive, and

(01:27):
in this one interview he confessed he actually hates writing.
It's just that he used to keep a calendar on
his wall. Oh that's right. Yeah, I think I have
heard this story before, but yeah, I keep going. Yeah,
And every day he'd right, and he'd marked this big
X on the calendar, and his motivation for ruining the
next day was just that he wanted to draw another
X and he didn't want to break that chain. But
that made me wonder, like, what are the tips other

(01:47):
geniuses have used to stay productive? Like can smells or
different clothing or certain tricks helped nudge you into finally
writing that great American novel you've always wanted to write?
Like what are the funniest ways to beat writer's block,
and us for today's show is all about let's dive in. Yea.

(02:23):
Hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and is always I'm joined by my good
friend Man Guesh had Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof glass,
just furiously working on his latest manifesto. He is one
motivated dude. He is. That. That's our friend and producer
Tristan McNeil, So Mango, part of the reason we did
this episode was that you were telling me about how

(02:45):
some of the folks in Hollywood used to deal with
writer's block, right, Yeah, So I was on this website
where someone had pasted an interview from the Hollywood Reporter
with Joel and Ethan Cohen, the Cohen brothers, and uh,
they were talking about this Hollywood producer named how Roach,
who's apparently a legend. I didn't know about him, but
he did Larel and Hardy and Little Rascals and a

(03:05):
bunch of famous movies and shows. And one of his
tricks was when the writers were running out of ideas,
he brings someone called a wild ye into the writing room.
And what's a wild e? Exactly? So it turns out
a wild e is someone roach for recruit, either from
like a mental institution, or it could be just like
a drunk off the street, and he'd bring them in,

(03:27):
put them at the writer's table, and when things were
getting stagnant, like at a table reader a story meeting,
these people would just blurt out these wild phrases or
comments or sometimes just full stories whenever they felt like it,
which feels ridiculous, but it also provided this like complete
non secutor And as the Cohen Brothers pointed out, like
sometimes a good idea is a good idea no matter

(03:48):
where it comes from or who it comes from. And
I also think there were a lot of bad ideas
blurt it out by the Wilds. Cute, but I have
to imagine. But you know, speaking of the Cohen's, they
like to beat their writer's watched just by starting another project.
So while they were trying to write and complete Miller's Crossing,
which is a fabulous film, they actually switched to working
on Barton Fink, and then they just switched back and

(04:10):
forth until they had two scripts instead of just one.
I mean, that's such an interesting way to beat writer's blog. Yeah,
I mean, I kind of like the idea that like,
if you can't finish one script, just finished two, right,
So where do you want to go from here? All right? Well,
a very different direction. How about Dan Brown, who you
of course know, is the author of the Da Vinci Code,
and and it was reading about some of the ways

(04:32):
that he would deal with writer's block. So just to
keep his blood pumping, he would set an antique hourglass
for every half hour, and when the sand would run out,
he would do a bunch of push ups and stretches,
which actually feels pretty normal, like an interesting way to
deal with it. But when he's really out of ideas,
he does something a little bit more strange. So he
slips into a pair of gravity boots and just hangs

(04:54):
upside down bat style in order to work through the problem.
I told you this was a different kind of idea,
but it's actually more complicated than that. So he was
giving this speech at a New Hampshire Public Radio event
and he described how he does this. So apparently he
has this specially designed table where he straps himself in
and then the table rotates around so that his head

(05:15):
is where his feet should be, and his toes are
pointing to the ceiling, and apparently the guy's been doing
this for a while and it actually helped him come
up with, you know, all those anagrams he's used in
his books. That is so weird, And I honestly feel
like like having that much blood rush in my head
would make me less inclined to come up with a
good totally. That would be the only thing I could

(05:37):
think about is how uncomfortable I was. But I mean,
I guess how you braised him as pretty personal, you know.
I I've read a bunch of people's bios, like um,
Louis Bunwell, the director, He had this chapter in his
autobiography where he uh talked about how like a certain
type of corner booth in a dark bar, and like
a certain type of martini with a very specific vermouth.

(05:58):
I think it was normally pratt. He would say those
were the things that you need exactly for breaking through writing.
And uh, you know, you read his description and you think, like,
this is so romantic and it feels like such a
thing to do in the city, and you can see
how ideas just flow to him in the setting. But
for someone like me, like I hate writing when I've
had even like a sip of alcohol. It does not

(06:20):
work from me at all. Yeah, I would say the
same thing. But um, you know, well, one thing that
might work for you if you're looking for zero distractions
is to follow edgar Allan Poe and also Jack Carrolla's
advice for writing on scrolls mango scrolls. Yeah, neither of
them thought that it was smart to get up from
your seat and have to go get another piece of paper.

(06:40):
Now why they couldn't just keep a bunch of paper
near them, I'm not really sure. But anyway, they felt
like getting time. Yeah, but but they felt like getting
up to get more paper would spur these other distractions.
So Poe would actually attach pieces of paper together to
make these long spools, and then he just used some
wax to seal it up. And that's actually how he

(07:01):
delivered work to his editors. Can you imagine this. I
would be so pissed to someone turned into scroll to
me and uh and what about Jack Carroak, Well, it
was kind of the same thing. So he always said
that stopping to get more paper broke his concentration. So
on the road that was actually scrawled out on a
one hundred and twenty foot roll of paper. I mean

(07:22):
that feels like it should be in a museum or something, right, Like,
it's pretty incredible. You know what My favorite Caroac fact is?
What's that? So this is from when we did the
swimsuit issue for Mental Flass and we found a picture
of him in a bathing student and it just threw
some facts next to it. But it's that he skipped
his high school graduation to read Leaves of Grass, which
I just think it's so amazing. Meanwhile, I'm sure I've

(07:45):
told you this before, but like I was forced to
attend my high school graduation and the superintendent of our
school read out all the lyrics too, and I swear
this is true. What he referred to as the classic
song from the movie Space Jams. What what is the
classic song from the movie Space cham I believe I
can fly? Of course, So we were stuck in our

(08:06):
seats and and he treated like every word was so meaningful,
like he was like, I believe I can fly, God,
I believe I can touch the sky. It was it
was really inspirational, and we all left the school and
became pilots. Of course you did, all right, Well, back
to the facts. What fact do you want to go

(08:28):
with next. Well, one thing I think could be a
cause of writer's block is when you're too comfortable. My
mother in law actually has the story of when she
was in college one summer and she was selling vacuum cleaners,
and she said, like, on the weeks when she was
particularly hungry or she needs something specific, like on those weeks,
she'd somehow sell four vacuum cleaners, and when she wasn't,

(08:49):
she just sell two or three. And I think it's
kind of the same with writing. And there's this great
story from Sherwood Anderson in nine six he quit his
job to focus on writing, and his publishers, who were
kind to betting on him, sent him these weekly advanced checks,
but he was having total writer's block, so he actually
asked him to stop. And when they asked him why,

(09:09):
he said, quote, it's no use. I find it impossible
to work with security stirring me in the face. Oh gosh,
that's pretty wild. I think I would find just the
opposite in that situation, you know. I I don't know
if that's pretty interesting. Well, so, one thing I've read
about is how people love to find the perfect writing spaces.
So Roald Dahl had his you know, his writing shed

(09:31):
where he walked to and he throw a blanket on
his legs and right from an easy chair like that,
to me seems like a little bit more of a
good spot to do your writing. And there was some
writer was trying to I want to say it was
Colin McCann, who has this tiny space on the floor
between a bookshelf and the wall where he sits and types.
It's it's kind of like a little nook there. But

(09:52):
one of the most unusual spaces I've come across is
George Bernard Shaw's. And in many ways his Writer's Help
was full of distractions, like it had electricity and a
telephone and a bell so people could ring for him.
And but one thing like it had this advantage of
being one or two minutes away from the house, so
when visitors would come over, his wife could answer the
door and actually honestly tell them that he was out

(10:14):
even though he was just you know, a minute away
or so. But one of the most important things to
Shaw was good lighting. And his heart was actually pretty
ingeniously built because it was like this giant lazy susan,
so he could actually spin it and follow the sun
as he wrote, which seemed like a pretty cool setup.
That's ridiculous, but I like it. Okay, So I know

(10:35):
we've got two more facts to go. But before we
get to those, let's take a little break. Welcome back
to part time Genius. We're talking writer's blocked now, will

(10:57):
I know I can struggle with writer's block sometimes, But
do you actually ever deal with it? Oh? No question. Yeah,
it's definitely frustrating when it happened. So what what do
you do to deal with it? So? I like doing
my research ahead of time and getting all the books
and things I need. But when it comes to actually writing,
sometimes I have like a super hard time getting started
if I don't feel like I have a good enough idea.

(11:18):
But then I'd say, like five or six years ago,
I read this thing that Peter Kafka is this legendary editor.
He he told his writers and he said, just write
out some beginnings. And you know, the idea is, just
start something and write a beginning, and then write another
beginning to that story, and then another, and even if
you have to stop and all you have is a
page of beginnings, isn't that a beautiful thing? And I

(11:41):
love that quote so much, and somehow that works for me,
like just you know, you start three or four things
and pick one that you like and then just let
the words flow from that until they don't. But that's
sort of my trick, even though we're not here to
talk about my trick. So, well, what's your final fact
going to be for this? That's still a pretty good trick, though,
I don't think you've ever told me that, But or well,
how about something about Salvador Dolly, who perfected the power nap?

(12:06):
So I love napping, so go on. Well, Dolly was
obsessed with that dream space between falling asleep and being awake,
so he tried to figure out how to put himself
into that space for inspiration. So he had a little
trick for this. What he would do is he would
sit in a chair and put a tin plate on
the floor and then fall asleep holding a spoon, like

(12:27):
pretty specific so you know, or you know, maybe have
some keys over the plate or something like that. But
when the object that he was holding dropped from his
hand and onto the tin, he'd get startled awake, and
and his hope was that he'd have this new wonderful
idea in his head when he woke up. So that
sounds like the worst way to wake up, Like it
feels like you're almost falling asleep in his comfortable chair,

(12:50):
but it's not really a nap. But I am kind
of amazed. So so did it work well? He swore
by the method. In fact, in his book Fifty Secrets
of Magic Crap Aftsmanship, he he actually writes here's the quote.
He says, the moment the key drops from your fingers,
you may be sure that the noise of its fall
on the upside down plate will awaken you. And you
may be equally sure that the fugitive moment, when you

(13:13):
had barely lost consciousness, and during which you cannot be
assured of having really slept, is totally sufficient, inasmuch as
not a second more as needed for your physical and
psychic being to be revivified by just the necessary amount
of repose. So I don't I can't say that I
know exactly what that quote means, but it just sounds

(13:34):
weird and fascinating. Yes, yeah, I mean. Dolly was also
afraid of trains, and he used to sit in the
front of the train because he thought it got into
places faster. He used to make his own cologne out
of fish glue, so I can't say that I trust
all his ideas. I mean, those seems smart to me. Well,

(13:54):
my last fact is about Charles Dickens, who needed a
few simple things on his deskins firearms, so wherever he
went and he often wrote from the road, he needed
five bronze animal statues, a paper knife, a green vase,
a desk, calendar, blue ink, and only blue ink, and
some quills. So if you're really struggling to write something,

(14:15):
it's probably because you don't have enough quills or bronze
animal statues watching you as your right. I imagine its
sounding a little bit like the Steve Martin scene in
The Jerk where he just needs the ass tray and
the land. But I'm curious that why blue ink, Like,
was he o c D about writing or what? Uh? Maybe,
but you know, I've actually read it's more because he

(14:35):
realized blue ink at the time dried faster, So it
was this trick he used to keep himself moving and
not smudging or having to block the pages as much.
M that's interesting. Well, you know, I'm not sure if
you had the best facts today, but you definitely had
the best story about a terrible graduation speech, and it
made me feel a little bit bad for you. So
I'm just gonna give you the trophy this week, a

(14:58):
pitty trophy. I like it. You know. I believed I
could fly, and today I did flies. Thank you, I
changed my mind. That's it for today's episode from Will
gave Tristan and the rest of us a part time gunius.
Thank you so much for listening. M