I finished writing The 50,000th Stair just over a year ago. At 145k words, it was my longest book to date, and I had written it in under two years--about double my normal writing rate.
As a writer, I'm a long-distance sprinter, and I almost always take 6+ months off between books. The thing was, though, I wanted to keep writing. I knew in detail one of the scenarios for book 3 and a significant amount of about half of the rest of the book. I felt like I ought to be ready, but my brain was desiccated, and even when I tried to write, nothing good emerged.
During this time, I went through various life changes. For part of it, I was busy and happy but had a lot of time off; for part of it, I was drudging and unhappy and had every second devoured. It didn't matter: the creative juices didn't flow.
Now, the #1 way of conquering writer's block that I've traditionally found is read more. But no book seemed to interest me. I found myself increasingly spending more time on my phone, especially watching YouTube videos of varying degrees of value.
Then, about a month ago, something happened. I was thinking about eating a food and wondered if it would be bad for me. My immediate response was to pull out my phone to ask Google, but I was in a place with no service, and I thought --
What am I doing? Why am I asking the internet if this food is bad for me? It's full of sugar and oil. If I think about it for two seconds, I know it's bad for me. In fact, why do I need to immediately look up the answer to any question that flashes past my brain? Especially as the result of looking it up is that I stop thinking about the question.
In short: more googling = less thinking.
Uh, oh, I thought. How has this crept so out of control? So I pulled up Focus mode on my phone and set it so that all internet browsers + YouTube are blocked all day. The only time they're unblocked is 5pm-8pm.
The difference was vast and immediate. Instead of YouTube garbage, I started listening to a superb audiobook of Nicholas Nickelby while I did housework. Every morning at breakfast, with no other entertainment, I found myself picking up notebook and pen and writing for an hour and a half while listening to music. Once my brain was no longer so stupid it couldn't understand them, I began enjoying books again. At first, I was actively using my phone for stuff between 5 and 8pm; but after a couple of weeks, I found it no longer interested me.
There's been increasing research out there about how the way we use our phones is making us (and our children) stupider. It certainly made me stupider. It may be making you stupider.
If you're having any writer's block, I highly recommend my experiment: block your phone for a few weeks, and regain your brain.
