Editing Writer's block (section)

==History==
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{{Quote box
 | quote  = "[[Sentimental Education|My novel]] is going very badly for the moment. That fact added to the deaths of which I have heard; of [[Louis Marie de la Haye, Vicomte de Cormenin|Cormenin]] (a friend of twenty-five years' standing), of [[Paul Gavarni|Gavarni]], and then all the rest, but that will pass. You don't know what it is to stay a whole day with your head in your hands trying to squeeze your unfortunate brain so as to find a word. Ideas come very easily to you, incessantly, like a stream. With me it is a tiny thread of water. Hard labor at art is necessary for me before obtaining a waterfall. Ah! I certainly know ''the agonies of style''."
 | source = —[[Gustave Flaubert]] to [[George Sand]] ({{circa}} 1868).<ref>"[https://books.google.com/books?id=bHZBAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA29 Letter XXXII]". ''The George Sand–Gustave Flaubert Letters'' (1922), p. 29. Trans. Aimee L. McKenzie.</ref>
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The affliction now known as writer's block has been recognized throughout history.<ref name="Clark">{{cite book |last=Clark |first=Irene |chapter=Invention |title=Concepts in Composition: Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Writing |edition=2nd |location=New York |publisher=Routledge |date=2012 |isbn=9780415885164 |oclc=703871383}}{{Page needed|date=March 2023}}</ref> Writers who are known to have struggled with it include authors [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]]<ref>{{cite journal|last=Rienzi|first=Greg|title=Great Scott: Fitzgerald's Baltimore|journal=The JHU Gazette|publisher=Johns F Kennedy University|date=28 September 2009}}{{verify source|date=July 2022}}</ref> and [[Joseph Mitchell (writer)|Joseph Mitchell]],<ref>{{cite AV media |last=Maher |first=Michael |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-32602862 |title=The ''New Yorker'' writer who didn't publish for 30 years |website=BBC News |date=7 May 2015 |type=Video}}</ref> composer [[Sergei Rachmaninoff]],<ref>{{cite web |last=Winston |first=Robert |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-10766308 |title=How great artists have fought creative block |website=BBC News |date=2010-07-27}}</ref> and songwriter [[Adele]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://shows.huffingtonpost.com/video/saturday-s-showbiz-news-adele-opens-up-about-writer-s-block-519185000?context=PC:homepage:PL6394:1445588705245 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151120085136/http://shows.huffingtonpost.com/video/saturday-s-showbiz-news-adele-opens-up-about-writer-s-block-519185000?context=PC:homepage:PL6394:1445588705245 |archive-date=2015-11-20 |title=Adele Opens Up About Writer's Block |website=[[Sky News]] UK via [[Huffington Post]] |date=2015-10-24}}</ref> Another example is [[Herman Melville]]{{dubious|date=August 2023}}, who stopped writing novels a few years after writing ''[[Moby-Dick]]''.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Miller |first=John J. |title=Wordsmiths Without Words |magazine=[[National Review]] |volume=68 |issue=9 |date=2016-05-23 |pages=23–24 |url=https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2016/05/23/writers-block-curing-authors-cant-write/ |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

[[Romanticism|Early Romantic writers]] tended to attribute writer's block (whether seriously or merely poetically) to [[Muses#In literature|a power that no longer wanted them to write]]. Its interpretation became less mystical during the time of the French [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolism]]. During this age, renowned poets, would give up writing early into their careers on the ground that they were unable to find the language to convey their messages. Such was the case for [[Arthur Rimbaud]] who after producing the bulk of his literary output during his late teenage years, completely stopped writing at the age of twenty. Though still, during the [[Great American Novel]] period (mid-18th to mid-19th century), the affliction was construed as something that stopped writers and caused them emotional instability.<ref name=":1">{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/06/14/blocked|title=Blocked Why do writers stop writing?|last=Acocella|first=J|date=14 June 2004|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=28 October 2019}}</ref>

The condition was first clinically described in 1947 by Austrian [[Psychoanalysis|psychoanalyst]] [[Edmund Bergler]],<ref name="Akhtar2009">{{cite book|last=Akhtar|first=Salman|title=Comprehensive dictionary of psychoanalysis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=35HoGo2uF1kC&pg=PA310|access-date=17 October 2011|year=2009|publisher=Karnac Books|isbn=978-1855758605|page=310}}</ref> who identified it as being caused by oral masochism, mothers that bottle fed, and an unstable private love life.<ref name=":1" /> The growing reputation of psychiatry in the United States made the term gain more recognition.<ref name="Castillo 1043–1044">{{Cite journal|last=Castillo|first=M.|date=2013-09-05|title=Writer's Block|journal=American Journal of Neuroradiology|volume=35|issue=6|pages=1043–1044|doi=10.3174/ajnr.a3729 |pmc=7965145|pmid=24008169|issn=0195-6108|doi-access=free}}</ref> Research concerning this topic was done in the late 1970s and 1980s. During this time, researchers were influenced by the Process and Post-Process movements and therefore focused specifically on the writer's processes.{{citation needed|date=November 2024}}