Warren Ellis on Writer’s Block

Love his answer to this. I tell my students this all the time, albeit in much gentler terms!

I find myself having an extremely difficult time getting anything out when I sit down to write. Do you have any tips or suggestions for someone looking to take their first steps into the world of creativity?

Warren Ellis Here’s the thing. Don’t insist on the first draft being good. That will paralyse you forever. In fact, insist on the first draft being as rough as a bear’s arse. Insist on it being an incoherent fucking mess. It’s not supposed to be good. It’s supposed to be *outside of you.* The first victory is hard but simple: get it outside of your head and down on a page. Right now, you’re constipated by expectation. Okay, you probably don’t want me to continue with that metaphor. But just get the ideas out of you and on a page where you can see them, in broken sentences and stick figures if you like. Fix it later, once it’s outside of your head where you can see it.