When I was a creative writing student these are the five top exercises I used to get rid of writer’s block. These aren’t designed to make you think of new plots or create amazing masterpieces, but they will help you if you’re stuck with something or just need a bit of a kick. You may find that they help you write an amazing best seller, you may not, but they will help make you a better writer.

1)      Do a few minutes of Blank Writing a day.

Blank Writing is when you just write, you may think you’ve got nothing to write about but force yourself to write. Write about what song you’re listening to, what you’re wearing where’s you rather be, write about anything just make sure you write.

I’ve done this nearly everyday since my second year at university and so far I haven’t used anything I’ve done in my blank writing, so don’t expect it to be the starting of a novel. It’s useful because practise makes perfect.

2)      Keep some form of Book Log

Write about every book you read. You don’t have to write a lot, just a few sentences about if you liked it and why. If you really liked an aspect of the book, you’re obviously going to write more and if you didn’t like a book you’re going to write less. But as long as you’re aware of why you like or dislike something, it will help you become a better writer because you will be able to identify things in your own work easier.

3)      Re-evaluate your own work

Go back to old work, the older the better, see how much you’ve changed and see how you’d write that story or poem now. Don’t get embaraced if you thought was amazing as a fifteen year old is a bit rubbish, we’ve all found things we thought were amazing only to grow up and think burning isn’t good enough for it. Re-evaluating your work will help you see how far you’ve come, but also what you need to work on. It’s always important for writers to be editing and revisiting their work.

4)      Try to work outside of your comfort zone

If all you usually write is Zombie stories, try to write a few love poems or if you usually write fiction write a bit on non-fiction. This change of habit will help foster new ideas and give yourself a rest from the usual. Ezra Pound famously said “Make it New” and it’s vital that a writer tries new things.

5)      Write letter’s to your characters

This might be the oddest thing on the list, and you might not like doing it. A few people on my course found that it didn’t help them at all but I found it invaluable. I know it sounds odd, but write a letter to your character explaining your choices. It may even help if write a character response, a few people in my classes did this but I never felt the need to. It helped me focus on their characteristics, it showed me when I had created flimsy characters and it sometimes showed weakness in the plot.