Judi's Story

How I beat the dreaded writer's block

I have always loved writing. But in my early years as a journalist, it would sometimes take me too long to produce my copy. My efforts needed too much revision. Then, during a particularly difficult time, I was struck with every writer’s most dreaded affliction – writer’s block.

It was a traumatic and paralysing experience. But it was also a blessing in disguise.

The things I discovered in my journey to overcome this chronic creative disability formed the basis of a huge amount of learning for me – and a fresh new approach to my work. My writing became easier, more enjoyable and more fluent.

So when, some years later, I found myself stepping into a teaching role it gave me an opportunity not only to pass on my journalistic knowledge, but to also share some of my past psychological blocks and the techniques I had learned to overcome them.

The exercises I devised to help friends, family and aspiring journalists to acquire confidence and self-belief have proved highly successful. So much so that I now base all my writing courses – whatever the topic – on these techniques and on the same underlying philosophy. I truly believe that everyone can write. It is not a rare talent, or something only a few special people can do, as many hundreds of Unleash participants from all walks of life have successfully proved.

In the last two decades or more, I have witnessed remarkable transformations during and following the Unleash Your Writing Power course, not only in people’s writing, but often in their lives. People have sometimes found the courage to make big changes once they feel free to be their real selves. And this has been an unexpected but rewarding bonus.

I believe that if we can drop the masks and write from our authentic selves we will access a huge reservoir of creative talent – and some miracles can truly start to happen.


Judi’s Background

Judi Goodwin is a writing tutor and coach with a background in freelance journalism. She regularly contributed to the Daily Telegraph, Radio Times, Manchester Evening News and BBC Woman’s Hour.

She holds the Certificate in Training and Development and is a qualified NLP Practitioner and Personal Performance Life Coach. Her client list includes the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the Bank of England, the National Association of Writers’ Groups and The Big Issue.

More than 30 of her previous course participants have published books and many more have appeared in print in newspapers, magazines and on-line.

“There’s no such thing as writer’s block. That was invented in California by people who couldn’t write"

– Terry Pratchett