How to Beat Writer’s Block Like Austin Kleon
Posted by David Duhr in 
A few months ago I met Austin Kleon at the Good Knight, across from WBN HQ, and asked him a few questions about his book, Newspaper Blackout. The interview turned into this feature on Fringe.
It was an enjoyable chat, even though I had to condense the 11,000-word discussion into a 2,000-word Q&A. What most caught my attention was that Kleon stumbled upon his form while horsing around during a bout of writer’s block. He was sitting at the kitchen table one morning trying to work on some short fiction, but the words just would not come; so instead, he grabbed a recent New York Times and a Sharpie and started blacking out words, sentences, and then entire paragraphs. Soon enough, he began to envision poetry in these blacked-out articles.
The result?The #6 bestselling poetry book of 2010, and a huge online following.
In the following video, I chat a bit about how Kleon got his start, then read and show a few pieces from the book, and end by talking about how breaking through writer’s block doesn’t necessarily have to involve actual writing.
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