The writing process can be stressful, and it is easy to feel anxious about writing, struggle to start writing, or lose focus while writing. Use these resources to implement mindfulness strategies such as meditative pauses, progress tracking, and reflective journaling into your writing routine.   

Materials designed by G. Travis Adams, Christopher Basgier, Katharine Brown, Michael Cook, Gina Lamka, and Annie Small 

This brief handout describes writer’s block and explains its causes 

• Writer’s Block Overview Handout Word Document 

• Writer’s Block Overview Handout PDF 

This brief worksheet explains solutions to writer’s block and a short reflective writing prompts to help you begin overcoming your own writer’s block 

• Overcoming Writer’s Block Handout Word Document 

• Overcoming Writer’s Block Handout PDF 

This is a handout useful for instructors as they help students navigate writer's block

• Helping Students with Writer's Block Word Document 

• Helping Students with Writer's Block PDF 

This longer worksheet explains some of the causes of writer’s block and writing anxiety, and it offers reflective prompts you can use to manage writing challenges 

• Using Reflection to Manage Writer’s Block and Writing Anxiety Word Document 

• Using Reflection to Manage Writer’s Block and Writing Anxiety PDF 

This handout describes the meditative pause, or brief moments in which you deliberately stop writing and check in with your body, your breath, and your mind, before returning to write 

• Meditative Pauses for Writers Word Document 

• Meditative Pauses for Writers PDF 

The following meditation script, “Focus into Breathing,” can be used before you write as a way of slowing down a busy mind and focusing attention 

• Meditation: Focus into Breathing Handout Word Document 

• Meditation: Focus into Breathing Handout PDF 

This activity helps you recognize your patterns of thought about writing and replace self-defeating thoughts with empowering ones to reduce the occurrence of writer’s block and writing anxiety 

• Mindful Writing Check-in Worksheet Word Document 

• Mindful Writing Check-in Worksheet PDF 

This activity combines Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and contemplative and embodied pedagogies to help writers externalize and silence an overly harsh inner critic

• Writing Mindfully Word Document

• Writing Mindfully PDF

This brief writing prompt helps writers plan how to use their time productively in a writing session

• Writing Warm-Up: Planning Your Writing Session Word Document

• Writing Warm-Up: Planning Your Writing Session PDF

This worksheet guides you in using expressive writing for self-discovery. You will learn about different types of expressive writing, such as answering prompts or making gratitude lists, and can complete several reflective prompts.

• Expressive Writing for Wellbeing Toolkit Word Document

• Expressive Writing for Wellbeing Toolkit PDF

This worksheet provides two brief writing prompts to use as a warm-up as well as to recognize and celebrate moments of growth in writing skills

• Writing Warm-Up: Tracking Your Growth Word Document

• Writing Warm-Up: Tracking Your Growth PDF

This writing warm-up encourages writers to affirm their readiness for writing through identifying the strengths they bring to the project

• Writing Warm-Up: Self-Affirmation Word Document

• Writing Warm-Up: Self-Affirmation PDF

This writing warm-up invites writers to reflect on a semester's worth of writing and recognize moments of growth

• Writing Warm-Up: Recognizing Your Growth Word Document

• Writing Warm-Up: Recognizing Your Growth PDF

This handout discusses the emotional response writers may experience when their writing receives difficult feedback or is rejected for publication. It frames writers' emotions as having an evolutionary purpose and encourages writers to see feedback as a learning opportunity

• Responding to Rejection Word Document

• Responding to Rejection PDF

The narratives below were written by Auburn University faculty who participated in the Writing and Wellbeing Fellowship. This Fellowship supports faculty as they cultivate fulfilling writing and teaching practices through mindfulness. At the end, they complete a reflective and visionary narrative of their writing and teaching lives through the lens of wellbeing, mindfulness, interconnection, and joy. Taken together, these narratives illustrate the many paths faculty take towards thriving and the questions they raise along the way  

As you read, consider the following questions: 

• What does thriving as a writer and teacher mean to you? 

• Where do you experience joy in writing and teaching?  

• How do these narratives help you to understand the relationships among writing, mindfulness, and wellbeing?

Materials designed by Elijah Gaddis, Ben Hinnant, Russell Mailen, Eden McLean, Yuhyun Park, and Peter White

Elijah Gaddis (History) contemplates how forming a writing community helps him integrate his writing, teaching, and research in support of his wellbeing

• Elijah Gaddis narrative Word Document

• Elijah Gaddis narrative PDF

Ben Hinnant (Human Development and Family Science) considers the ways in which mindfulness encourages practitioners to act intentionally, and he relates his own practice of mindfulness to compassionate responsibility to students 

• Ben Hinnant narrative Word Document

• Ben Hinnant narrative PDF

Russel Mailen (Aerospace Engineering) thrives when he gives grace to himself and others, a practice that allows him to experience interconnection and to enter a joyful “flow” state as a writer

• Russell Mailen narrative Word Document

• Russell Mailen narrative PDF

Community plays a central role in Eden McLean’s (History) experience of wellbeing as a writer and teacher, and mindfulness helps her to remove obstacles to fulfillment

• Eden McLean narrative Word document 

• Eden McLean narrative PDF 

For Yuhyuh Park (Special Education, Rehabilitation, and Counseling), wellbeing isn't just personal, but interdependent. His own wellbeing allows him to advocate for others via his writing and ultimately to seek their liberation  

• Yuhyun Park narrative Word document

• Yuhyun Park narrative PDF

Peter White (Political Science) shares his shift from “binge writing” to a more mindful writing pace, and he speculates that a similar shift might prevent students from misusing generative AI

• Peter White narrative Word document

• Peter White narrative PDF