Editing Writer's block (section)

==Causes==
Writer's block may have several causes. Some are [[Creativity|creative]] problems that originate within an author's work itself. A writer may run out of [[Artistic inspiration|inspiration]], or be distracted by other events. The writer [[Elizabeth Gilbert]], reflecting on her post-bestseller prospects, proposed that such a pressure might be released by interpreting creative writers as "having" genius rather than "being" a genius.<ref>[http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160926024711/http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html |date=26 September 2016 }}, a [[TED (conference)|TED]] talk in 2009</ref>

A fictional example can be found in [[George Orwell]]'s novel ''[[Keep the Aspidistra Flying]]'', in which the protagonist Gordon Comstock struggles in vain to complete an [[epic poem]] describing a day in London: "It was too big for him, that was the truth. It had never really progressed, it had simply fallen apart into a series of fragments."<ref>George Orwell, ''Keep The Aspidistra Flying'', Chapter 2.</ref>

===Physiological and neurological basis===
Physiological and neurological bases of writer's block have been suggested. Under stress, a human brain will  "shift control from the [[cerebral cortex]] to the [[limbic system]]".<ref name="writer's brain">{{cite web|last=Bane|first=Rosanne|url=https://quitwork.club/The-Writers-Brain-Rosanne-Bane41-50_1.pdf|title=The Writer's Brain: What Neurology Tells Us about Teaching Creative Writing|date=February 2010|access-date=4 December 2014|archive-date=June 28, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180628015459/http://quitwork.club/The-Writers-Brain-Rosanne-Bane41-50_1.pdf|s2cid=146850178}}</ref> The limbic system is associated with the instinctual processes, such as "fight or flight" response; and behavior that is based on "deeply engrained training". The limited input from the cerebral cortex hinders a person's creative processes, which is replaced by the behaviors associated with the limbic system. The person is often unaware of the change, which may lead them to believe they are creatively "blocked".<ref name="writer's brain"/> {{Unreliable source?|date=February 2024}}

In her 2004 book ''The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain'', the writer and [[neurology|neurologist]] [[Alice Weaver Flaherty|Alice W. Flaherty]] has argued that literary creativity is a function of specific [[List of regions in the human brain|areas of the brain]], and that block may be the result of brain activity being disrupted in those areas.<ref name=":0">{{cite magazine|url=http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/06/14/040614fa_fact|first=Joan|last=Acolella|title=Blocked: why do writers stop writing?|magazine=The New Yorker|date=14 June 2004}}</ref> Flaherty suggested in her writing that there are many diseases that may impact one's ability to write. One of which she refers to is [[hypergraphia]], or the intensive desire to write. She points out that in this condition, the patient's temporal lobe is afflicted, usually by damage, and it may be the same changes in this area of the brain that can contribute to writer's-blocking behaviors.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain|last=Flaherty, Alice Weaver|isbn=978-0547525099|oclc=1037196899|year= 2015|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt }}</ref> Not to be confused with writer's block, [[agraphia]] is a neurological disorder caused by trauma or stroke causing difficulty in communicating through writing. Agraphia cannot be treated directly, but it is possible to relearn certain writing abilities.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Oppenheim|first=Lois|date=June 2005|title=Book Reviews: The midnight disease: The drive to write, writer's block, and the creative brain. By Alice W. Flaherty. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004, 320 pp.|journal=Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association|volume=53|issue=2|pages=630–634|doi=10.1177/00030651050530022401|s2cid=143529086|issn=0003-0651}}</ref>

===Brain trauma===
Other research identifies neurological malfunctions as a cause. Malcolm T. Cunningham showed how these malfunctions can be linked to trauma both mental and physical.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Cunningham|first=Malcolm T.|date=2007-04-17|title=Writer's block: failures of the neurological network and comparisons with business networks|journal=Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing|volume=22|issue=3|pages=154–160|doi=10.1108/08858620710741850|issn=0885-8624}}</ref>

Physical damage can produce writer's block. If a person experiences tissue damage in the brain, i.e. a stroke, it is likely to lead to other complications apart from the [[lesion]] itself. This damage causes an extreme form of writer's block known as agraphia.<ref name="Castillo 1043–1044"/> With agraphia, the inability to write is due to issues with the cerebral cortex; this disables the brain's process of translating thoughts into writing. Brain injuries are an example of a physical illness that can cause a writer to be blocked. Other brain-related disorders and neurological disorders such as epilepsy have been known to cause the problem of writer's block and hypergraphia, the strong urge to write.<ref name=":2" />

===Writer anxiety and inhibition===
Another cause of writer's block has been due to writer's anxiety. Writer's anxiety is defined as being worried about one's words or thought, thus experiencing writer's block.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/psychology-of-creative-writing/FF64818A31E9EA809C8607DB1F1290B4|title=The Psychology of Creative Writing edited by Scott Barry Kaufman|year=2009|publisher=Cambridge Core|doi=10.1017/CBO9780511627101|isbn=978-0511627101|access-date=2019-10-28|editor1-last=Kaufman|editor1-first=Scott Barry|editor2-first=James C|editor2-last=Kaufman}}</ref>

From a composition perspective, Lawrence Oliver said in his article "Helping Students Overcome Writer's Block": "Students receive little or no advice on how to generate ideas or explore their thoughts, and they usually must proceed through the writing process without guidance or corrective feedback from the teacher, who withholds comments and criticism until grading the final product."<ref name=Oliver>{{cite journal |last=Oliver Jr. |first=Lawrence J. |title=Helping Students Overcome Writer's Block |journal=Journal of Reading |volume=26 |issue=2 |date=1982 |pages=162–168 |jstor=40029248}}{{verify source|date=July 2022}}</ref> He said that students "learn to write by writing", and often they are insecure or paralyzed by rules.<ref name=Oliver />

Phyllis Koestenbaum wrote in her article "The Secret Climate the Year I Stopped Writing" about her trepidation toward writing, claiming it was tied directly to her instructor's response.<ref name=Koestenbaum>{{cite journal |last=Koestenbaum |first=Phyllis |title=The Secret Climate the Year I Stopped Writing |journal=[[The Massachusetts Review]] |volume=48 |issue=2 |date=Summer 2007 |pages=278–308 |jstor=25091203}}</ref> She said, "I needed to write to feel, but without feeling I couldn't write."<ref name=Koestenbaum /> In contrast to Koestenbaum's experience, Nancy Sommers stated that papers do not end when students finish writing and that neither should instructors' comments.<ref name=Sommers>{{cite book |last=Somers |first=Nancy |chapter=Across the Drafts |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> She urges a "partnership" between writers and instructors so that responses become a conversation.<ref name=Sommers />

===Student motivation===
Herman A. Estrin in his article "Motivation in Composition Writing" writes: "When freshmen are assigned such topics for a research paper as&nbsp;... they have no real background of the subject for an in-depth paper&nbsp;... they prepare a mechanical, lifeless paper with no creativity, imagination, or originality".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Estrin |first=Herman A. |date=1973 |title=Motivation in Composition Writing |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27564516 |journal=Improving College and University Teaching |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=132–134 |doi=10.1080/00193089.1973.10533389 |jstor=27564516 |issn=0019-3089|url-access=subscription }}</ref> According to him, freshman students write well about topics they are passionate about. Moore, Marshall in his article “Articulate Walls: Writer’s Block and the Academic Creative.” thinks similarly by writing: "...his or her practice is paralysingly out of sync with the syllabus; and teaching from a state of creative depletion may engender a cascade of self-doubt. This paper will look at the process by which these practitioners attempt to navigate this zone of creative disconnect.". Saying having assigned, planned out, and required papers is contributing to loss of motivation.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Moore |first=Marshall |date=2018-07-03 |title=Articulate walls: writer's block and the academic creative |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14790726.2017.1384025 |journal=New Writing |language=en |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=348–359 |doi=10.1080/14790726.2017.1384025 |issn=1479-0726}}</ref>

Aline Alves-Wold, in her article "Assessing Writing Motivation: a Systematic Review of K-5 Students' Self-Reports" states that there is a general lack of research on the motivation of students to write in the first few years of education, which is problematic when one considers how important initial experiences are in motivating students to write. Success generally enhances one's belief in their efficacy, whereas failure weakens them. "These mechanisms are particularly evident in early phases of skill development where failure typically occurs before a sense of efficacy has been firmly established. This implies that children in their first years in school have writer self-beliefs that are particularly malleable and dynamic".<ref name=":3" /> Writing development is therefore both enhanced and endangered during the first years in school.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last1=Alves-Wold |first1=Aline |last2=Walgermo |first2=Bente Rigmor |last3=McTigue |first3=Erin |last4=Uppstad |first4=Per Henning |date=2023 |title=Assessing Writing Motivation: a Systematic Review of K-5 Students' Self-Reports |journal=Educational Psychology Review |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=24 |doi=10.1007/s10648-023-09732-6 |issn=1040-726X |pmc=9947433 |pmid=36852261}}</ref>

===Negative self-beliefs and feeling of incompetence===
[[Mike Rose (educator)|Mike Rose]] stated that writer's block can be caused by a writer's history in writing, rules and restrictions from the past. Writers can be hesitant of what they write based on how it will be perceived by the audience.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rose |first=Mike |date=1980 |title=Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer's Block |journal=College Composition and Communication |volume=31 |issue=4 |pages=389–401 |doi=10.2307/356589 |issn=0010-096X |jstor=356589 |s2cid=26780594}}</ref> Guangming Ling states that there is a negative correlation between self-efficacy and avoidance goals in studies on writing apprehension and writer's block, which suggests that having hesitations about writing may lead to less effort and thus less success.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Ling |first1=Guangming |last2=Elliot |first2=Norbert |last3=Burstein |first3=Jill C. |last4=McCaffrey |first4=Daniel F. |last5=MacArthur |first5=Charles A. |last6=Holtzman |first6=Steven |date=2021-04-01 |title=Writing motivation: A validation study of self-judgment and performance |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1075293520300702 |journal=Assessing Writing |language=en |volume=48 |pages=100509 |doi=10.1016/j.asw.2020.100509 |s2cid=233567231 |issn=1075-2935|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Similarly to Ling, Dana Driscoll and Jennifer Wells explain writing dispositions in their essay "Beyond Knowledge and Skills". Driscoll and Wells argue that dispositions toward writing play crucial roles in determining whether writers are able to transfer their knowledge of writing into other contexts of life.<ref name=":22">{{Cite web |title=CF 26: Beyond Knowledge and Skills by Dana Lynn Driscoll and Jennifer Wells |url=https://compositionforum.com/issue/26/beyond-knowledge-skills.php |access-date=2024-02-28 |website=compositionforum.com |language=en}}</ref> Related to self-efficacy, Driscoll and Wells suggest that writers who have a positive self-belief are more likely to produce work than some with a negative self-belief.<ref name=":22" /> Self-efficacy is especially important for a writer when it comes to an unfamiliar learning or writing setting because it may seem overwhelming.

James Adams noted in his book ''Conceptual Blockbusting'' that various reasons blocks occur include fear of taking a risk, "chaos" in the pre-writing stage, judging versus generating ideas, an inability to incubate ideas, or a lack of motivation.<ref name="Adams">{{cite book |last=Adams |first=James L. |date=2019 |orig-year=1974 |title=Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Better Ideas |edition=5th |location=New York |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-1-5416-7404-2 |oclc=1084631918 |pages=25–133}}</ref>

In "Motivation in the Writing Centre: A Peer Tutor's Experience", Leonie Kirchoff states that "The concept of 'amotivation' describes a lack of motivation due to an individual's feeling of incompetence and helplessness."<ref name=":4" /> Demotivation is the process of reducing or diminishing motivational basis for behavior or ongoing actions through external influences. An external factor such as feedback may affect demotivation, whereas an internal factor, such as pessimistic expectations, may cause amotivation. Even so, both concepts have similar effects on writers.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |date=2022-01-24 |title=Motivation in the Writing Centre: A Peer Tutor's Experience |journal=Journal of Academic Writing |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=31–40 |doi=10.18552/joaw.v6i1.282 |url=https://publications.coventry.ac.uk/index.php/joaw/article/view/282 |language=en-US |last1=Kirchhoff |first1=Leonie |doi-access=free }}</ref>

For tutors to provide students with the most appropriate feedback, scholars like Jared Featherstone from James Madison University suggest that tutors should be well educated in mindfulness strategies to combat a student's fixed mindset.<ref name=":32">{{Cite web |last=Featherstone |first=Jared |date=2018 |title=The Mindful Tutor |url=https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/wln/dec1/Featherstoneetal.html }}</ref> He argues that tutors or instructors should be mindful enough to be grounded and focused solely on their student so they can pick up on the feelings, stress, or fixed mindsets their student might have.<ref name=":32" /> An unmindful tutor might accidentally reinforce a student's negative thinking patterns.