Welcome to our new blog series where BIG WRITING IDEAS ARE SIMPLY EXPLAINED! This series is dedicated to sharing key subject knowledge that can make you a better teacher of writing.
Each month, we will share a new concept or figure with you. Over time, we hope this series can build up your expertise. To follow the series, simply sign up to our newsletter here.
This month, we are looking at Donald Murray.
📣 Writer’s block is part of writing
“Sometimes not writing is part of writing.”
🧠 The big idea
In The Essential Delay (1978), Donald Murray reframed so-called writer’s block as an essential part of the writing process. Rather than seeing students sitting and thinking as a lesson failure, Murray distinguished between avoidance (true block) and the need for incubation time (the necessary delay while ideas form, connections surface, and the writer’s purpose clarifies). He urges teachers to help students recognise that the writing process includes productive silences and that pressure to rush to the page can actually undermine their deeper thinking and the quality of their writing.
🏛️ In context
| Year | Event |
| 1978 | Murray publishes The Essential Delay: When Writer’s Block Isn’t |
| 1980s | Rise of process theory, with emphasis on invention and prewriting |
| Today | Murray’s insights inform process-based writing instruction |
🔍 Core concepts
🔺 Incubation vs. block
Not all inactivity is avoidance. It’s often preparation and thinking.
🌱 “The mind is working even when the pen is still.”
🔺 Writing is recursive
The writing process involves looping back, pausing and waiting for insight.
♻️ “Delay can be the space where ideas ripen.”
🔺 Patience in process
Good writing can require time away from the page.
👤 Key figure
🏛️ Donald M. Murray
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and influential composition theorist. His work emphasised writing as discovery and the value of process over product.
🛠️ In the writing classroom
✅ Encourage freewriting, conversation and brainstorming during stuck moments.
✅ Model and normalise pauses during writing time.
✅ Avoid seeing students sitting and thinking as always being procrastination.
⚖️ Criticism and debate
🔸 Some fear that normalising delay supports student avoidance.
🔸 Others note that not all writers can afford long incubation due to tight deadlines.
🔸 Still, Murray’s approach remains a touchstone for compassionate, process-based instruction.
💬 Famous quote
“Sitting and thinking is not failure – it’s part of the work.”
Find out more:
- A Writer Reforms (The Teaching Of Writing) Donald Murray & The Writing Process Movement, 1963-187 by Michael J. Michaud [LINK]
- Teach Writing As A Process Not Product by Donald Murray [LINK]
- Write to Learn by Donald Murray [LINK]
- Expecting The Unexpected: Teaching Myself- And Others- To Read And Write by Donald Murray [LINK]
- A Writer Teaches Writing by Donald Murray [LINK]
- The Essential Don Murray: Lessons from America’s Greatest Writing Teacher by Thomas Newkirk & Lisa C. Miller [LINK]