The Truth About Writer’s Block
Here’s the thing everyone gets wrong about writer’s block - it’s not an absence of ideas or inspiration but an absence of direction.
What do you hope to achieve with your content? How vibrant and vivid is this end goal? And do you believe it’s possible?
If any doubt or uncertainty clouds the end goal, it will block your creativity simply because your ideas don’t know where to go.
Writer’s block isn’t the absence of ideas. It’s the opposite. It’s what happens when all possible ideas come to the surface and there’s no system to triage which ideas to work on and release to the public.
This is what I experienced when I simply stopped posting.
I have an active imagination and a creative mind that never turns off. But when it came to creating content for McEwen Media while I was working in corporate comms, I was blocked. Because I didn’t know what the end goal was anymore.
For years I have marketed to service providers and solopreneurs - people like me figuring out how to share their expertise and build a business around it. I knew how to speak to this audience and I knew how to serve them. Clear path = constant creative output.
Working in corporate comms changed all of that. Within a month, I was bringing creative ideas, coaching practices, and strategy to the job. Basically treating one of the Big Six banks in Canada the same way I worked with clients for the past four years. It became clear to me that after years of marketing to solopreneurs, I actually have a corporate product.
Mind blown.
Suddenly, the end goal changed. The path was no longer clear to me. If I have a corporate offer, how does this change my content strategy? Do I pen a farewell letter to all of the people who benefit from following the brand? Or is there a world where I can do both?
It took some time to gain clarity (and in fairness, part of me is still finding my way in the dark). But here are the steps I took to finally gain clarity and get ideas flowing again.
Start with what you know right now: I don’t have a crystal ball. I don’t know what the future looks like, which means the full media strategy was not immediately visible. But I do know what my present looks like: I am on a contract until the end of September 2026. I have until then to figure out the corporate offer and the operations needed to deliver a consistent product.
Create your ideal calendar: The good news about working for a bank is I get to work bank hours. Monday to Friday 9 to 5 is spent in service to the full-time position. This leaves evenings and weekends. Technically it also leaves first thing in the morning, especially if I join the 5 a.m. club. As I figured out my ideal calendar, I learned what aspects of my free time set me up for side-hustle success. I learned I have no interest in joining hte 5 a.m. club. My morning routine is for self-care and setting me up to have a great day. Evenings are good for creative work, when it’s just me getting ideas down on the laptop. I’ve also learned to cap this work at one hour (specifically from 7 to 8, after dinner and before Bravo’s primetime lineup). Weekends (especially Sundays) are good for seeing clients. I schedule my appointment book and my calendar accordingly.
What do I want the business to look like this time next year? This is my north star. I need to know what this work is driving towards. I know this is a pivot. And I know this pivot is where McEwen Media hits its stride as a high-calibre media consulting company.
Indecision feeds fear. Decisions feed creativity. I didn’t need to have all of the answers right away before the creative juices started flowing. I only needed to make decisions around those three questions:
What do I know about the brand right now?
How much time can I devote to this new direction?
What does the end result look like?
Next, I’ll share what ideas bubbled to the surface and how I found my way forward (and back to you).