Two Sylvias' Weekly Muse: August 27, 2023

Issue 70

Hello Writers and Poets!

If we tell you that we are closing out August with a Muse intro dealing with writer’s block, you might think to yourself, “Not more crazy solutions for unblocking my creative dry spells,” but this approach is different. Instead of presenting a list of strategies to kick writer’s block to the curb, we are going to look at the underlying cause—what is actually happening in your brain when ideas simply refuse to flow.

Writer and creativity coach, Tedd Hawks, has written an interesting article in which he explores the mechanism in our minds responsible for writer’s block. Like most of us, Hawks had read numerous pieces offering ways to combat writer’s block, but feeling frustrated, he began researching some of the neuroscience behind those inexplicable periods when we can’t think of a single creative idea.

Through his research, Hawks learned that the source of creative blocks is our brain attempting to keep us safe. During most of our waking hours, the executive func…