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Breaking Down Writer’s Block : An Infographic

October 30, 2018 | 2 min read

Writer’s block can happen to anyone, no matter if you’re a new writer or if you have had several well-received publications under your name. These dry spells can be a bother to deal with, as they can go on for days or even weeks at a time. It can be frightening, especially if you make a living by writing.

But what exactly happens when you have writer’s block?

It plays out differently for different individuals. While some find themselves not being able to pen a single decent sentence, there are others who can still write pages of paragraphs—but nowhere near the quality that they’re used to producing. There are those who just can’t seem to find the right words to say and also those who seem to have too many ideas to fit into a single article.

Writer’s block can happen at any time, sometimes during crucial moments in your writing career. Because of the unpredictability of writer’s block, knowing a few techniques to overcome it can come in handy.

Some experts suggest to continue writing, even when what you end up writing doesn’t make sense. You can even write about something else, so find a topic that truly interests you, and feel the thoughts and ideas come out through written format. You can also work on your focus by using a distraction-free typewriter instead, which will force you to write and write until you’re finally done.

However, if you can’t even seem to find any words at all to scribble down, then shut everything down and go for a walk. Sometimes, simply taking yourself out to unwind can help loosen the screws that are holding the mental box trapping your creative juices. Go out and see people; change your environment—in other words, do something else.

Interested to find out more about this scary yet inevitable experience? Check out this infographic to get more details.

Writer’s block can be a pain to work with, but even the most famous writers suffered from it at various points in their writing careers. Don’t be easily discouraged if you experience that too. After all, there are many ways you can overcome this creative stumbling block.

 

Breaking Down Writer's Block

January 09, 2026 2 min read

A new year means a whole new crop of work is entering the public domain. And that means endless opportunities for retellings, spoofs, adaptations, and fan fiction.

December 30, 2025 3 min read

It’s Freewrite’s favorite time of year. When dictionaries around the world examine language use of the previous year and select a “Word of the Year.”

Of course, there are many different dictionaries in use in the English language, and they all have different ideas about what word was the most influential or saw the most growth in the previous year. They individually review new slang and culturally relevant vocabulary, examine spikes or dips in usage, and pour over internet trend data.

Let’s see what some of the biggest dictionaries decided for 2025. And read to the end for a chance to submit your own Word of the Year — and win a Freewrite gift card.

[SUBMIT YOUR WORD OF THE YEAR]


Merriam-Webster: "slop"

Merriam-Webster chose "slop" as its Word of the Year for 2025 to describe "all that stuff dumped on our screens, captured in just four letters."

The dictionary lists "absurd videos, off-kilter advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks pretty real, junky AI-written books, 'workslop' reports that waste coworkers’ time … and lots of talking cats" as examples of slop.

The original sense of the word "slop" from the 1700s was “soft mud” and eventually evolved to mean "food waste" and "rubbish." 2025 linked the term to AI, and the rest is history.

Honorable mentions: conclave, gerrymander, touch grass, performative, tariff, 67.

Dictionary.com: "67"

The team at Dictionary.com likes to pick a word that serves as “a linguistic time capsule, reflecting social trends and global events that defined the year.”

For 2025, they decided that “word” was actually a number. Or two numbers, to be exact.

If you’re an old, like me, and don’t know many school-age children, you may not have heard “67” in use. (Note that this is not “sixty-seven,” but “six, seven.”)

Dictionary.com claims the origin of “67” is a song called “Doot Doot (6 7)” by Skrilla, quickly made infamous by viral TikTok videos, most notably featuring a child who will for the rest of his life be known as the “6-7 Kid.” But according to my nine-year-old cousin, the origins of something so mystical can’t ever truly be known.

(My third grade expert also demonstrated the accompanying signature hand gesture, where you place both hands palms up and alternately move up and down.)

And if you happen to find yourself in a fourth-grade classroom, watch your mouth, because there’s a good chance this term has been banned for the teacher’s sanity.

Annoyed yet? Don’t be. As Dictionary.com points out, 6-7 is a rather delightful example at how fast language can develop as a new generation joins the conversation.

Dictionary.com honorable mentions: agentic, aura farming, broligarchy, clanker, Gen Z stare, kiss cam, overtourism, tariff, tradwife.

Oxford Dictionary: "rage bait"

With input from more than 30,000 users and expert analysis, Oxford Dictionary chose "rage bait" for their word of the year.

Specifically, the dictionary pointed to 2025’s news cycle, online manipulation tactics, and growing awareness of where we spend our time and attention online.

While closely paralleling its etymological cousin "clickbait," rage bait more specifically denotes content that evokes anger, discord, or polarization.

Oxford's experts report that use of the term has tripled in the last 12 months.

Oxford Dictionary's honorable mentions:aura farming, biohack.

Cambridge Dictionary: "parasocial"

The Cambridge Dictionary examined a sustained trend of increased searches to choose "parasocial" as its Word of the Year.

Believe it or not, this term was coined by sociologists in 1956, combining “social” with the Greek-derived prefix para-, which in this case means “similar to or parallel to, but separate from.”

But interest in and use of the term exploded this year, finally moving from a mainly academic context to the mainstream.

Cambridge Dictionary's honorable mentions: slop, delulu, skibidi, tradwife

Freewrite: TBD

This year, the Freewrite Fam is picking our own Word of the Year.

Click below to submit what you think the Word of 2025 should be, and we'll pick one submission to receive a Freewrite gift card.

[SUBMIT HERE] 

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Sources

December 18, 2025 7 min read

What can Jane Austen's personal letters teach writers of today?