The Block

That feeling when creativity doesn't flow in abundance and Writer's Block takes over your brain...

I realised something was wrong when the idea of tapping away on the keyboard, an activity that usually brings me so much joy, didn’t excite me.

Instead, it left me feeling dread.

A few months ago, I experienced the thing as a writer I feared the most and felt deep shame about: The Block.

This summer, the creative part of my brain came to a screeching halt. Those months were filled to the brim with bad events. But they are not the thing which threw me off kilter. I couldn’t even blame my lack of enthusiasm to smash out essays on being exhausted by my new day job¹.

Like the ugliest scaffolding outside the most beautiful building you can imagine, many nasty barriers to writing rose in my mind. I knew there wouldn’t be an instant fix to bring them down, but in my desperation to write again, I tried.

Predictably, I assumed that sitting at my laptop with a cup of tea and Substack or a blank Word document on the screen would lead to words pouring out of my mind. It sounded simple enough, and it is usually the scenario I’m in when the flow hits. Except my fingers and mind were not willing, and any words that did come gushed as well as a blocked drain.

Perhaps trying my hand at something, and I mean anything else that was slightly creative, would light the spark to write. I dunno - the theory that not forcing my hand at writing would be the cure seemed like it made sense at the time. But all that did was mushroom into epic periods of procrastination… and becoming really good at texturing oat milk for my matcha.

No matter what I tried, my once innate instinct to write didn’t come rushing back, which left me bewildered and frightened: OK, so I’m not claiming to be Bernardine Evaristo's level of amazing, but as a published author and someone who ekes out part of their living by writing, this Block wasn’t supposed to happen.

The thing is, I knew I had so many ideas bobbling around my mind. There were all these think pieces and life events that I wanted to write about. And then I started to convince myself that perhaps all these ideas were, in fact, utter horseshit that no one would be interested in or would want to read.

The panicked voices in my head got louder. “What if the desire to write has completely dried up?” I thought to myself. “Maybe this is it, and the game is up, Jools”. Is it too much to say I was grieving the loss of my writing joy? Because I really was. I went through ‘the stages’ and felt them in my bones.

Denial set in when I was convinced that those pointless, forced laptop sessions would get me back to work.

Anger was truly the nastiest stage and the one I feel the most embarrassed about. This was a grubby pit of self-loathing that led to bitter envy of everyone I followed on Substack, smashing out weekly or monthly pieces as if it were nothing.

Bargaining - that was a strange one. It’s not like I was ready to sell my soul to the devil for a crumb of inspiration, but maybe the writing gods, if there are such things, would see that I had intentions to make good on my writing commitments and take pity on me.

Depression… well, that was all-enveloping all the damned time.

A friend of mine who knew of the terrible mindfunk I was in over my lack of writing (and output on here) told me to give myself “the gift of grace” and stop putting on a front to the outside world. I know they were right, but how could I go easy on myself after falling off SO hard? The danger of trying to present to the world as your ‘best creative self’ while having absolutely nothing flowing from your brain is unintentionally setting yourself up for a mighty fall… and inevitably (and, understandably) pissing off a lot of people on the way down.

I took time out.

I stopped trying to force everything with my writing to fall back into place.

I felt rotten about it, but I stopped.

And it helped.

Perhaps that period of simply leaving it well alone and then being able to return to write about The Block is me heeding my friend’s advice, and entering Acceptance.

I’m accepting the fact that I can’t be in creative output mode all the damned time, and that burnout will bite me on the arse if I’m not mindful. I’m accepting that my writing probably won’t set the literary world on fire, or lead to my Substack hitting one of their ‘bestseller’ lists… and that’s OK.

I’m also accepting that comparison is the absolute thief of joy - and that I really don’t want my vessel of writing joy to be stolen by holding myself up to others.

*And… breathe, Jools*. Writing this feels like an exhale I’ve needed to do for a long time. So, hopefully, I’ve broken down some of that ugly scaffolding surrounding my mind and can get back to writing again.

I feel like I’m in a much better place. Those feelings of creativity are returning, with the ability to write again and other things on the agenda for 2026 already exciting me.

It feels good to be back.

Oh, of course, I can’t end this without mentioning a slight change that occurred while I was in the wilderness of rediscovering writing. If you’re an existing subscriber, you might have noticed that this space is no longer called VeloMail. Why the change of name? Well, as my life continues to evolve and includes things beyond bikes, I felt a tiny shift was needed.

The ‘Velo’ in me isn’t dead (and obvs, I’m still LadyVelo elsewhere and a specific type of foling bike will always have my heart), but for here, Just Jools feels just right.

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Buy my book: Back in the Frame: Cycling, Belonging and Finding Joy on a Bike.

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1. Yes, I actually have a piece coming up about this development.