How to break the block

I am facing a complicated situation lately which consists in feeling completely blocked when trying to write an essay. Everyone of us have something we enjoy doing the most, but it doesn't mean it is easy for us to do it. Imagine yourself in a situation where you want to do your best, you are trying to demonstrate that you can create something good and make other people feel interested about that product of yours... but you are completely unable to do anything worthy! Then you feel the frustration at its highest level, I can tell because it happened to me this afternoon. What can I do to avoid going blank in an writing exam? How can I find any inspiration?

In order to solve this problem I could prepare myself better for the exam and anticipate some questions, therefore I will have in mind an assured number of topics to expose when being asked to write. It is also a great idea to memorise complex vocabulary and general writing structures which have been taught in previous lectures or I have read somewhere else; this way, I can show my teacher that I interested in the subject. This solution will make me feel confident before the exam and will make it easier to begin to write once it starts --it usually takes me a lot of time trying to find the main idea for my essay.

The reason why I do not like the solution described above is that I feel as if I were cheating because I am not totally improvising. Native writers are able to make good pieces of work whenever they need to, and I woud like to achieve that level of domain when writing. This may sound too self-demanding or even arrogant, I really would not like to give a poor impression, I know it is very soon for that but my sincere desire is to become good at writing and feel everything under control when I am asked to compose something. If I always memorise the exact sentences that I am going to write, I might not improve at all nor surpass myself. Moreover, those sentences could became useless if the exam questions were different from those you had been expecting.

Another solution for these problems is spending a huge amount of time reading in a daily basis. This is a great way to acquire new conversation topics; besides, new vocabulary will be learnt and I can analize the organisation and structure of good essays. In addition to this, I could get interested in two or three topics and go in depth with them. This way, I will become a little expert, thus in the future I could use this knowledge for any writing excercise I am asked to do.

To sum up, there are several ways to find a source of inspiration and avoid going blank, like memorising sentences from classnotes, reading good essays with frequence or becoming an expert in two interesting topics. All of them seem useful and many people admit they resort to these tips in order to improve their writings. I recommend myself to try these solutions from now on and I also encourage myself to practise and write even when I do not feel confident about it! As Stephen King said, "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot."

Exercise: Problem/Solution essay.