A Wandering Soul
Premkumar Masilamani
03 Nov 2026
What is writer’s block?
There are many times that I sat down to write and could not think of anything worthy of writing.
Worthy. Yes.
Something worthy of writing.
Something worthy that I could put my name on and publish.
I believe that the need for your writing to be worthy could be one of the reasons for the writer’s block.
This is my writing process.
A basic ingredient of writing is a thought. Agreed?
Most of us have a continuous stream of thoughts, memories, internal monologues, imagery, etc in our minds most of the time. So, at any moment in life, you can write down what’s in your mind. It could be thinking about past memories, finances, a hard problem at work, humming a song, or the strange person you saw on the train. It could also be some illegible gibberish, repeated many times. Who cares?
The first step is: You sit down and write. Voila. You’re a writer. You are such a brave writer that you can write your innermost thoughts without fear. You even wrote the gibberish and laughed at it.
The second step is: You decide which thoughts or ideas are worth publishing. You select them, edit them, and make them presentable to the readers. Ruthlessly, discard everything else.
Really, that’s all there is to writing. It’s no magic like everyone pretends.
When people talk about a writer’s block, they are simply saying, I am not able to write something worthy or aligned with my goal. Of course, when you are writing a novel and your mind suddenly wanders to philosophy, you are not writing towards your goal. But you are still writing. Let the writing happen. What’s the worst that can happen?
My request for a beginner is to stay with the gibberish, as long as it takes. Keep writing your raw thoughts. If something good comes up and you feel safe enough, publish. If there is nothing good - all gore, bad, gross thoughts - trash it. Just write for yourself.
I believe you would know yourself better after writing down your thoughts. Writer’s block could be you simply resisting your own mind.
What do you think?
PS: This is how my writing started today. I killed two cockroaches tonight in my house. One cockroach hid under the sofa and literally walked over my feet, thinking it was safe. How dumb? Unlucky for them, I killed them both. Sorry guys. I don’t want to preach it, but I am God to cockroaches. To an extent, I can decide who gets to live and who dies.
Thank you for reading. If this article sparked a thought, raised a question, or inspired a different perspective, I'd love to hear from you.