10 Ways to Get Unstuck and Restore Your Writing Inspiration by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

Writing a whole story rarely comes without sticky points. Sometimes you glide past them in a single writing session; other times, they bring your momentum to a grinding halt. Just as no two writing blocks look the same, neither do the solutions—and often, all it takes to get unstuck is a fresh perspective on how to restore your writing inspiration.

If you’re feeling stuck and struggling to move forward, this article from internationally bestselling, award-winning author Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé is designed to help you break through. Faridah’s debut novel Ace of Spades was an instant New York Times bestseller, and she’s since gone on to write Where Sleeping Girls Lie and Four Eids and a Funeral (the latter co-authored with Adiba Jaigirdar—regular readers of our blog may recognize this title from Ella McLeod’s recommendations of the best YA romance books). Faridah’s upcoming novel, The Heirs, is set for publication in June 2026.

In her own words, Faridah shares honest reflections on hitting the creative wall and, more importantly, how writers get unstuck. She offers ten practical pathways to help you reconnect with your story when the words feel forced, guiding you back to your novel with renewed clarity, confidence, and inspiration.

All humans have the same two things in common: we are born and we all going to die someday. In a similar vein, all writers are plagued by the same set of issues. The first being that we all eventually find ourselves creatively hindered for one reason or another, which leads to two inevitabilities: a struggle to find inspiration and, consequently, writer’s block.

In this post, I’ll be sharing some of my personal tips that I use whenever I am facing these writing dilemmas, with the hope that some of my methods (however unorthodox) will be of service to other writers facing the same issues.

5 ways to beat writer’s block

1. Try a mind exercise to make writing feel fresh again

Writer’s block is a symptom of a wider set of issues, and the way to beat it is to diagnose and treat the cause. Sometimes that cause is the pressure of writing the particular story you have set out to write. Sometimes you have the entire world and characters perfectly laid out in your head, but the block manifests as a struggle to transmit this magnificent idea from your mind onto a blank page. The treatment for this, I think, is to loosen up your rigid writing joints through a writing exercise.

I write a lot of mysteries and thrillers, and so the writing exercise I often give myself is to imagine that the characters from my story have just stumbled across something surprising. Oftentimes, it is a dead body or a sign dripping in blood, or if I want to take this exercise to extreme lengths, I might have them come across an animal in the wild. I let the scene play out, writing down their reactions, letting their characterisations form in this creative space. I always say that no writing is wasted writing.

All the writing you do gives you skills for the next story you write, and so while this exercise won’t add to your actual word count, it gives you insight into your characters, your writing voice and the dialogue for this particular story.

This exercise is all about getting your creative muscles to loosen. You have to give yourself permission to fill the blank page with elements of your story and play around with different ideas and scenarios. In doing so, you alleviate the pressure while also finding your feet and translating your own story from brain to page. 

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2. Taking care of basic human needs

Writing, especially when you have other life obligations such as work and family, can feel like it requires a lot of sacrifice in the form of waking up early before your other daily obligations, or even going to bed later when those same obligations are no longer an issue. Sometimes it means missing your lunch break to get some words in or focusing solely on your project to the point that regular things just fall to the wayside.

As writing is a very sedentary job, it is so easy to neglect tasks such as drinking enough water, eating enough food and taking in enough fresh air. However, in not doing these things, there are real effects on the brain and its ability to be productive.

Sometimes writer’s block is just the result of not taking care of your basic human needs.

3. Putting yourself in extreme and interesting situations

Let’s say you've done your writing exercises. You’ve slept enough and eaten enough and gotten your fresh air and done everything possible to try to beat this writing block, and it’s still not working...

Sometimes what your body needs when you feel stuck is a brand new sensation. What sensation, you might ask? Well, it depends on you as an individual, how far you’re willing to go and how desperate the situation is. For me, that sensation involves shocking my nervous system.

Sometimes writer’s block is just the result of not taking care of your basic human needs.
—Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

My writing blocks often come about as a result of burnout or the extreme pressure I place on myself to get words perfectly down on the page, which makes me feel very anxious and almost creates an internal shutdown where my brain can’t even process thoughts, let alone words. When I find myself in this sort of predicament, I realise that what I need is an interesting, perhaps even extreme, change in the physicality of my situation. Rather than sitting at my desk, in front of my laptop, I need to be doing something else, something that’ll wake me up.

One extreme thing I have done to “wake up” is to lock myself outside in the freezing cold and not come back inside until I have an idea and/or feel less overwhelmed by the creative pressure in my brain. I first did this while I was on deadline for my first book, Ace of Spades. I was living in Scotland at the time, and it was minus 3 degrees and snowing outside. I got up from my desk and marched right outside, and I did not come back in until I figured out at least one major plot point. It is extreme, but it worked for me! 

I think a shock to the nervous system is highly underrated and is sometimes the exact thing that is needed to curb the seemingly immovable block. Here are some other ways you can get your brain to “wake up”:

• Dip your face in a bowl of cold water
• Take a cold shower
• Take a regular shower
• Go for a walk (a brisk one)
• Do jumping jacks
• Spin around
• Play music out loud and jump up and down, or just dance to it
• Or, if you’re extreme like me, lock yourself outside in the freezing cold until the sparks of a new idea form

4. Taking a break from the story

Sometimes the reason you’re blocked is not because of you. Sometimes it’s because of the story. We get so attached to these worlds and characters we have poured so much time and effort into, and oftentimes the best thing we can do for our own creativity is to put them down and let our brains work on something brand new. Some stories require us to step away and gain a new perspective. As I said at the start, no writing is wasted writing and so it is not a loss to pause or shelf a project. It is a plus.

Rather than sitting at my desk, in front of my laptop, I need to be doing something else, something that’ll wake me up.
—Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

5. Refilling the imagination cup

You cannot create in a vacuum. We need to consume stories to create them. Someone who doesn’t read books or watch movies or TV shows, who doesn’t surround themselves with creativity, is unlikely to have much creativity to pour back out into the world.

I see our creativity as a ceramic mug. You fill it up with all the stories you collect, and then you drink it all in and create more with all you’ve consumed. When your cup is empty, so is your imagination. Writing blocks can occur because you have not factored in the time and space to consume, so here’s your permission to do so now.

Go and read a book, or watch a movie or a TV show. Your creativity depends on it.

5 ways to find inspiration again

It’s easier said than done to just go out and find new inspiration after pouring so much into a story. So, here are five tips on how to unlock your creative pathways.

1. Take a story you love and make it different

A fear that many writers have is working on a story that has already been done before, but the truth is, there is no writing a completely unique, never-been-done-before story. The foundations of all our favourite narratives have been laid before in older stories from hundreds or even thousands of years ago. What makes our stories unique is that we are the ones telling them. No one can replicate your writing voice or your experiences or your unique perspective.

So, now that concern is out of the way, give yourself the freedom to take something you love and reshape it.

With Ace of Spades, the seeds of the idea came to me after I finished binge-watching Gossip Girl for the first time at university. I wanted to write something that gave me that same feeling of being immersed in this world of opulence and the creeping danger of a Gossip Girl-like figure spreading secrets. I’d also watched Get Out a few months before and was obsessed with the way discussions of systemic racism were woven into a fun psychological thriller plot. With that, the idea for my debut novel was born.

I did the same with my second book, Where Sleeping Girls Lie. The idea of a story like Mean Girls but with murder really appealed to me, and so I took some of the elements I loved about Mean Girls, added a darker undercurrent, and in turn made it my own.

Not only is doing this really great for your creativity, but it becomes so helpful when you’re pitching your story to agents, publishers and readers, because you already have your comparative titles ready to go.

What makes our stories unique is that we are the ones telling them. No one can replicate your writing voice or your experiences or your unique perspective. So, now that concern is out of the way, give yourself the freedom to take something you love and reshape it.
—Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

2. Take a story you hate and make it better

The sister advice to my previous point is to take a story you hate and make it better.

Sometimes inspiration comes from a place of disappointment. Sometimes you’ll watch or read something and it won’t quite live up to your expectations. Instead of just sitting with that disappointment, I urge you to ask yourself what you would have done differently. Brainstorm ideas for how you’d fix the issues you personally found with the story, and from there, if creativity seizes you, start writing and follow that thread all the way.

My next book, The Heirs, came about in part because of my strong dislike of a particular show. (I won’t mention the show’s name in this post, but if you ask me, I’d be happy to tell you which one it was!) I was so frustrated while watching it, feeling like the concept had been wasted and wishing the creators had done a lot more with certain narrative strands. This led me to write what has been my favourite project to work on.

All of this is to say, sometimes being a hater can take you far.

3. People-watch/give into sonder

As writers, we are essentially professional people-watchers. People-watching has been my favourite thing to do since I was a child. I would look at strangers on the street and make up devastating backstories for them. I’d see a kid riding his scooter around the neighbourhood and I’d imagine that when he disappears from my viewpoint, a massive truck would hit him. I’d see a young woman walking side by side with another young woman and I’d imagine that the first girl is harbouring a massive crush on her friend, who secretly likes her too.

The scenarios in my head are always pretty devastating, seeing as I am drawn to melancholy, but people-watching trains our brains to be creative even when we aren’t at a computer. It helps with characterisation and pushes your mind to different creative heights.

4. Read! Consume!

This is very similar to the advice for tackling burnout, but let me reiterate: you cannot create with an empty cup! Make it part of your job to seek out new stories.

We need to consume stories to create them. Someone who doesn’t read books or watch movies or TV shows, who doesn’t surround themselves with creativity, is unlikely to have much creativity to pour back out into the world.
—Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

5. Putting the work down if you’re too close to it

Lastly, another similar piece of advice. Put down that story you’ve been obsessing over that has not been going anywhere! Your imagination cannot thrive if you don’t allow yourself to venture into the unknown.

Sometimes a block in your imagination comes from being too close to something. You often experience the most growth when you are uncomfortable and changing narratives, and beginning something new is an uncomfortable (and exciting!) feeling. Allow yourself to sit in that discomfort and see what comes from it. 

‍The Heirs by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

Five prodigies, one dead father, a mansion full of suspects...

Octavius the Maestro. Fola the Brain. Bilal the Olympian. Perdita the Artist. Romeo the Failure.

‍These are the five heirs of the illustrious billionaire Leontes Button. Adopted and viciously trained with their father’s infamous “Button Method” to prove his hypothesis for creating prodigies—child geniuses—the Button siblings have had no choice but to be brilliant according to their father’s impossibly high standards. Until he is murdered at his annual Prodigy Ball.

Now, all who attended the ball are required to stay in the Button Manor while the police investigate. But the officers have their work cut out for them. Each of the Button siblings has something to hide, but the heirs aren’t the only ones with secrets. After all, Leontes Button was especially good at making enemies...

Preorder The Heirs in the U.S.A. and in the U.K. now!

Our grateful thanks to Faridah for sharing such valuable insights, not just on the reasons why writers might get stuck, but what they can do to help get the words flowing again when these moments happen. Members of The Novelry can settle in to watch a recording of Faridah’s recent live writing workshop in their Catch Up TV library now.

Wherever you are on your journey as a writer, our novel writing program offers the complete pathway from the idea to “The End.” With personal coaching, live classes, community support, and step-by-step lessons to fit your schedule and inspire you daily, we’ll help you complete your book using our unique one-hour-a-day method. For mentorship from published authors and publishing editors to live—and love—the writer’s life, sign up and start today. The Novelry is the famous fiction writing school that is open to all!