Writers, we’ve all been there. It’s easy to let a poem flow out of you when inspriation bursts out of the mouth of your vein-popping professor or falls from the crying sky. However, sometimes, when you actually want to write, the words just won’t come. Fortunately, inspiration doesn’t always have to strike, sometimes it can be sought. Sometimes the words were there all along, and you just needed a little nudge to let them out. Below, stuck writers, are some tips that help me transition the words from the tip of my own fingertips onto the page. Maybe they’ll help you, too:

1. Experience something new: If you're writing is feeling a little mundane, maybe your life is, too. Go on an adventure. See something beautiful or do something thrilling. When your emotions are rattled, so is your writing. Give yourself something to write about.
2. Mix up your writing lair: Sitting at the same desk to write may be comforting for you, but then again, maybe it’s time to change up your routine. Once again, the mundane is not necessarily the most inspiring. Try writing in your local coffee shop, at the library, or somewhere outside. If you need the comfort of your quiet room to write, then maybe just change up your desk. Add a vase of fresh flowers, or put away your dirty dishes. Fresh location, fresh mind.
3. Take a break: Have you ever tried to read a boring book but found yourself rereading the same paragraph over and over? Writing can be the same way. If you’re becoming uninterested in your writing, get up, stretch, let your mind breathe, and come back to it later. The brain does better when it gets little breaks. Ask science if you don’t believe me.
4. Observe: A good writer is a good observer. The more that you pay attention to the world around you, the more thoughts you will have to put down on paper. Open your senses to each moment… and maybe keep a pen handy.
5. Gain a new perspective: Just as it can feel suffocating to write when your experiences are limited, so it can when your perspective is limited. Read a book that you normally wouldn’t, talk to someone with different opinions from you, or try to imagine yourself at someone else’s dinner table. We are all just pieces of what we learn from each other. Perhaps if you gain a new piece, you’ll be able to create a new piece.
6. Write by hand: Exercising releases endorphins. I can’t help but wonder if vigorously scribbling down ideas on to actual paper counts as exercise. There is something purely therapeutic about the physical writing motion of the hand. Maybe that won’t always be so for every generation, but if you grew up writing by hand in school, try returning to these writing roots in order to regain a perspective you may have just forgotten.
7. Pick a prompt: Oftentimes, we just need a little bit of direction, a little bit of inspiration. The good news is, inspiration is everywhere. You can create a prompt from anything! Example: “Oh, look, there’s a stain on my shirt. I think I’ll write about the symbolism behind this stain,” or “That cute baby is laughing in the restaurant. I wonder what’s going on inside of his head…”
8. Read: How do we ever learn to do anything, really? It is by example that we determine how to talk and behave and obtain special skills. To the same effect, reading provides an excellent example for how to write. Read a good book and allow yourself to be inspired by what someone else can do.
9. Don’t be too hard on yourself. It is difficult to think of a circumstance in which writing a good piece becomes a matter of life or death (but that’s a good prompt...quick, someone take it). It’s OK if your mind is not constantly producing unique and insightful thoughts worth sharing with readers, Internet-goers, or even just paper. All of the above tips can be helpful for writer’s block; however, when it comes down to it, all you can do for sure is recognize that your worth is not the same thing as your writing. Your writing may be an extension of yourself if that’s what you would like for it to be; however, your writing is not you. Don’t be so hard on yourself if it’s not turning out the way you want it to when you want it to. You are [probably] a human instead of a super-writing-robot, come to control the minds of your readers. Accept your mortality, and give your writing your all. Persevere and find your writing within you. You control your writing. It does not control you.