Writer's Block

"You don't know what it is," wrote Flau-bert, "to stay a whole day with your head in your hands trying to squeeze your un-fortunate brain so as to find a word." Writer's block is more than a mere matter of discomfort and missed dead-lines; sustained experiences of writer's block may influence career choices. Writers in the business world, profes-sional writers, and students all have known this most common and least studied dysfunction of the composition process. Rose, however, sees it as a limitable problem that can be precisely analyzed and remedied through instruc-tion and tutorial programs." Rose defines writer's block as "an in-ability to begin or continue writing for reasons other than a lack of skill or com-mitment," which is measured by "pas-sage of time with limited functional/ productive involvement in the writing task." He applies the information pro-cessing models of cognitive psychology to reveal dimensions of the problem never before examined. In his three-faceted approach, Rose de-velops and administers a questionnaire to identify blockers and nonblockers; through simulated recall, he selects and examines writers experiencing both high and low degrees of blocking; and he proposes a cognitive conceptualization of writer's block and of the composition process. In drawing up his model, Rose delin-eates many cognitive errors that cause blocking, such as inflexible or con-flicting planning strategies. He also dis-cusses the practice and strategies that promote effective composition.