When you experience writer’s block, you may not immediately think of forgiveness as a solution. But maybe you should.

Have you ever noticed that writer’s block allows you to write everything other than the thing you want to complete most? This means writer’s block is somehow specific. But that also means it has blind spots you can exploit. So instead of suffering with no end in sight, you can build writing muscle and a renewed trust to overcome writer’s block.

But first, ask yourself:

Do you really have writer’s block, or are you simply out of practice? Sometimes writer’s block is a sign – albeit a persistent one – pointing to where we can be better tomorrow. Today’s discipline sharpens talent and rewards you with today’s flow through today’s sweat. The version of you that doesn’t have to write to write better doesn’t exist. Writer’s block can trick you into thinking there’s a version that does.

Do you have an unreasonable expectation of yourself to be better because you’re an expert in another field? You’re probably amazing at a lot more than you’d care to write about. But rewriting to build momentum in a novel’s story arc works the heart muscles differently from executing camel pose.

Do you need to learn more about the topic you’re writing about? Maybe. In-depth understanding is the raw material for the most accessible articulation. What more do you need to learn about your topic? Might you simply need to forgive yourself for not knowing more than you know today?

Are there other, even more legitimate reasons why you’d feel blocked, even if you weren’t?

Where were you when you committed or recommitted to your writing self? Wherever you were, you had to acknowledge that it would come with difficulty. Perhaps the challenges of a writing life are what initially lured you to your writing journey. So why pile shame onto yourself for needing to work through those challenges as they appear? Might you forgive yourself for rejecting the necessary resistance as part of the way forward? Might you have forgotten that your struggle will make your puzzle resplendent?

In “The Book of Joy” co-authored by Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s, forgiveness is included as one of the 8 Pillars of Joy. Archbishop Tutu says “Without forgiveness…we are bound to the chains of bitterness, tied together, trapped.”

While the Archbishop was speaking of how a refusal to forgive others for their wrongdoings profoundly restricts our joy, writer’s block can also be a bitter trap that you feel bound to. You can begin to associate the act of writing with difficulty and frustration, building self-reluctance and self-rejection, withholding your unique contribution from the world. Forgiveness is an empowering act that can decode the complication and ease the reluctance to write, which is often felt and defined as a block.

In fact, you reflexively extend this kind of creative forgiveness to others, and often. Your favorite comedian may not make a standup for five or more years at a time. Or your favorite neo-soul or BAM artist makes an album at a pace of about once a decade, or moves in a different sonic direction, and misses the mark. You allow the arc of learning to take place for them, encouraging their exploration no matter how often their house record feels cliche. You empathize with, justify for, ignore in favor of, avoid altogether for allegiance to…them. And we forgive them when it falls flat. Blindly or guiltily, but always wholly.

Save some forgiveness for you, too! Can you forgive yourself for not fully embracing the experience of your learning trajectory? You’re writing a novel for the first time; some characters are going to need a third or fourth (or more) look at their dialogue. You’re working through a new collection of poems; can you forgive yourself for discovering the need to refine the intent behind telling a given story?

Reflect a moment more on what forgiveness means to you, and use these 7 prompts about forgiveness as a writing exercise:

• When was the last time you asked forgiveness from a close friend? What happens between friends that call for forgiveness?
• Write about a time when you were faced with forgiving a sibling. 
• Write about a time when forgiving a parent was easy.
• What’s the most difficult thing you’ve forgiven a parent for?
• Write about a time you sought forgiveness for after you made an honest mistake.
• When was the last time you sought forgiveness from a friend, sibling, parent?
• Write about the last time you forgave yourself for feeling frustrated with yourself. (a.k.a. being human)

Often forgiveness is trapped within personal or ethical affairs, rarely integrated as a tool for a writing practice. But a moment to explore what forgiveness offers you quickly reveals its quiet power.

Next time you’re frozen, staring at a blinking cursor before beginning your next novel’s first chapter or carving a verse of poetry to pieces, yet no words escape from your brain to your fingers, how quickly will you remember to employ forgiveness?

These writing prompts were designed with the intent to help you reflect on our capacity for forgiveness, and to get you writing again. To explore forgiveness further, Archbishop Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu’s “The Book of Forgiving” lays out a wonderful framework as complement to “The Book of Joy”.

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