Truth is, words don’t fail me often, so it’s not something I’m comfortable with when it happens. I’m a blabbermouth and love to expound on subjects that intrigue me. Whether it’s the always frightening writer’s block or pure exhaustion draining our vocabulary reservoirs or knowing the word you want but not being able to procure it from the tip of your tongue (aphasia), when we can’t express ourselves, it can be a major frustration. (Disclaimer: I understand that for some people, it’s much more than a simple frustration. They’ve had an injury or have a condition that causes aphasia and it’s not likely to go away. But for the purpose of this blog post, I’m talking about the run-of-the-mill tip-of-the-tongue problems.) It’s doubly frustrating when you’re bilingual and you can’t think of the word or words in either language that you want to use to enhance your story.

Beyond the irritation of not being able to retrieve a word from our neural databases, aphasia can be debilitating if it happens frequently. (Aphasia is an inclusive term that can be broken down into more determinate terminology for when the failure to retrieve happens or what part language is failing us.) How do we stimulate our synapses to produce what we we are looking for? For me, word retrieval usually happens at 4:00 a.m. a few days later as I wake up from a dead sleep, shouting the pesky word or name I couldn’t think of at the appropriate time.

We add to our life story daily—sometimes 140 characters at a time, sometimes in a long rush of emotion. But what happens when language fails us (especially when it’s part of our job description)? How do we get back in the language groove? And why does it usually happen in high-stress situations? Or is that just when it bothers us the most?

Writer’s block can be a little more overwhelming, especially when we’re assigned to write an article or are passionate about our subject and we can’t produce the elusive wording. Some sites offer a cure for this predicament, such as psychcentral.com in its article 5 Creative Ways for Writer’s Block or Pam Federbar’s blog post for Huffington Post, Cure for Writer’s Block. Just as with medicine, not every cure works for every would-be writer/language producer. My go-to cure? Some good loud music (think AC/DC, Korn) and I think about the subject until I just can’t think anymore. Take notes. Then write. Then delete and write some more. Then edit. Then write some more. It doesn’t always turn into the polished piece that I need or want, but it does help to storm the brain castle and jostle the thoughts a bit.

How do you get over your writer’s block? Do you have problems with some form of aphasia?