“If I can get it in sync,” she said, “it works really, really well. When it’s going well, she feels there’s a rhythm to her writing: two days on, two days off, two days on. She doesn’t write daily, but several times a week, so it fits around her work at the university. She balances novel and short story writing alongside being an academic, supervising PhD students, and teaching creative writing. Her third novel, A Kind of Intimacy, was published in 2009, and since then she has published three more novels to great critical success. Then it happened! And I was really afraid.” A regular writing routineĪshworth has written regularly since she was a teenager – she wrote two novels before she was 21 (both unpublished, she fondly remembers them as self-absorbed, self-pitying teenage angst). “I always thought that when writers talked about writers’ block, they were actually just idle.

Then it happened! And I was really afraid.” “I’d never had this before, I always thought that when writers talked about writers’ block, they were actually just idle.

I thought when I opened the file again, the book would be crappy, it would be awful, I wouldn’t be able to get back into it, that I’d spent two years and it was gone, and I’d ruined it. “I needed more time off than I thought I would, and as time passed I realised I hadn’t been near my book for about six weeks. The longer she was away from her book the harder it was to get started again. A family bereavement forced her to stop writing mid-project. There’s no such thing as writers’ block, so thought novelist Jenn Ashworth – until it happened to her. Do you give up or take action? Find out how novelist Jenn Ashworth created #100daysofwriting to overcome writers’ block and fall back in love with her book with a gentle productivity challenge. Writers’ block hits – you’re overwhelmed and paralysed by the fear you’ll never write again, let alone be productive and build a regular writing routine.

Prioritise your writing - exercises to help make writing matter and make it happen.

Stop trying so hard to write and get yourself a routine instead.

Find your writing inspiration with Wyl Menmuir.

The 100 day 21 book