I've offered advice before on how to beat writer's block. But it's an ongoing struggle. You know to trick your brain into creative thought, you know to 'write through it'. You're good there. But I bet there's one big gap in your thought about it: mental time. 

What is mental time? Well, time is time. There's only so many hours in the day. Once you've done work, chores, fed the kids and put them to bed, there's even less time to write. But that's not all that's to it. Just because you have an hour to write doesn't mean your brain is ready to do it. That's mental time. Your mind has only a certain amount of ability in a day to do creative Right Brain thought. You tap into that well at work a lot. You tap into it with your kids when you read them books and tell them stories. But you may not know that you tap into it on social media. Especially on Facebook.

So here's my writer's block tip #2: LEAVE FACEBOOK. Hear me out. There are a lot of great reasons:

  • The average user spends 30 to 60 minutes a day on Facebook. An HOUR. An hour that could be writing. an hour a day of writing is 300-600 pages a YEAR. 
  • That hour is spent activating your right brain. Be honest with yourself. You craft responses to other people's think pieces. How often do you edit and delete lines before submitting? A great exercise, no doubt, but that's writing. You're doing writing. The only difference is it's pretty much lost to the void of Facebook within a day.
  • You're not challenging yourself with any of it. It's mostly discussions amongst friends that agree.
  • It's not even a good character study. You're getting shallow, curated presentations of people, not people as they really are.

I Dropped Facebook after 10 years and found that my writing benefited greatly and immediately. My brain was sharper, I could write longer and with better clarity. I had the fuel. 

You can deactivate your account but also save your data to rejoin again where you left off if you want. Why not give it a try? Try one week off Facebook. I bet you'll find you don't miss it.

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