Writing tip 19 - When you get stuck, read.

I was at a poetry workshop on Saturday and poet Jackson said that she had heard that writer's block was not so much a case of the writing being stuck, as the writer being stuck (sorry if I have that wrong Jackson!)

Maybe that's why I find reading helpful when I get stuck - especially if it is a novel that hits the mark. This week's tip is one that many writers suggest (and just as many seem to ignore) and that is to read, read, read. For me it's part of my self-imposed professional development (to use that lovely bureaucratic term).

When I have been trying to solve a particular problem of how to lift the text, or help the pace, or avoid the cliché, a good book often brings back that old experience of recognition. This is why I do this! Because this is possible.

Besides novels I like to read poetry, and compilations of interviews with writers such as those in Ramona Koval's Speaking Volumes - Conversations with remarkable writers, and The Paris Review Interviews - Volumes 1-4. Another good one is Graham Swift's Making an Elephant - Writing from within.

Writing prompt

Put your writing aside for a few days and read a good book, all the way through, then get stuck back in.