Understanding Writing Blocks

By Keith Hjortshoj

Book Overview

Why do capable students and scholars fail to complete writing projects? What are "writing blocks," and how can writers overcome them? Why are writing blocks more common for advanced and experienced writers who are not supposed to need help? And why are they more common in the humanities than in the sciences? Keith Hjortshoj answers these and other questions in Understanding Writing Blocks. This book demystifies the causes of writing blocks, which are often ignored, misunderstood, or attributed to obscure psychological disorders. Hjortshoj examines blocks instead as real writing problems arising from specific misconceptions, writing behaviors, and rhetorical factors present at different stages of the writing process. In a lively and informative style, he defines the nature of writing blocks, examines their causes, and offers advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professional writers the diagnostic tools and strategies necessary for getting their work done. Although appropriate for any writing course, Understanding Writing Blocks targets advanced composition students and graduate writers who are most likely to encounter immobilizing obstacles, and whose experience supports the author's assertion that a writing block is usually "an affliction of the good writer." Hjortshoj draws his material and evidence from extensive research, interviews, and consultations with blocked writers from his twenty-five years of teaching. Especially helpful to students working on dissertations and other complex projects, Understanding Writing Blocks illuminates the factors that undermine writing ability in a wide range of endeavors.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195141369
• ISBN13: 9780195141368
• Release Date: February 2001
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

I can write!

I found this book to be extremely helpful in overcoming my frequent issues with writing blocks. The book really helped me to consider the ways that I think about and approach writing which enabled me to better understand why I often find myself unable to write and gave me the tools to develop a new mindset in regards to writing. This isn't a feel good self-help book with lots of specific techniques for overcoming writing...

I failed at Nanowrimo so I learnt more

I did not really fail. Last year, my first, I completed the assignment, but it was a horrid first novel, so bad as to be shelved rather quickly by me. I was depressed. Honestly, this really got to me. But I tend to want to discover what happened and in the next year, this one, I have read all that I could get my hands on so that led to me reading more and more about the writing process so as to see what i did wrong, why...