Hello, and welcome to Writer's Corner, a place where I talk about my walk with writing and all the fun stuff that entails. This week? Hide your children and nervously bite your nails because we're talking about the dreaded... Writer's Block. (dun, dun, duuunnn)
Yes, friends, it's that time again. Like the great crimson wave, another bought of writer's block has come to ruin my life. In hindsight, it came out of nowhere, yet if I really think about it, I've been denying her existence for a little over a month now. Granted, this is a good practice to have, but what happens when that illusion fades and you finally realize that the words just aren't flowing?
Do you sit around and mope? Do you think about the days of yore when you had fifteen ideas at once? Do you long for the instance in the future when this abundance of ideas will hopefully happen again? Or are you like me, and start three or four new articles only to realize that you're just not feeling it?
No matter what you do to cope, the fact of the matter is that the whole thing is frustrating as hell. You have this yearning to put words to keyboard, but you end up spending hours looking around with your brow furrowed and thinking, "Where the words tho?" You want to write them, but they just aren't there.
When this happens, you tend to panic. Suddenly, you start to worry about whether you're ever going to be able to write again, or if God is punishing you for something. And even though writing is your life, you sometimes have fleeting thoughts about whether or not you're really good at it.
This is dangerous thinking, my friend, because instead of trying to refocus your mind on the task at hand, i.e. getting back in the saddle, you're blindly looking around, trying to find a horse that's really just a hairsbreadth out of your reach. In other words, it's the wrong thing to be focusing on.
All the time, I hear people talk about the idea of success and the people who achieve it. The most common saying I hear when this is discussed is the fact that people that achieve success never think about whether or not they're good at what they're doing, they focus on doing it. They refine their craft until someone can finally call attention to it. Yet, by that point they've been focused on the prize for so long that this acknowledgement doesn't even phase them.
So, when we have writer's block and we're obsessing over whether or not we're good enough, we end up making ourselves not good enough. I think Bob Ross says it best when he says,
“Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you're willing to practice, you can do.”
And that's the crux of the situation, we always need more practice. It's not that you're not good or that you can prevent this horrible stumbling block, it's that you have to find ways around it.
The best advice I was ever given as a writer came from my Creative Writing: Poetry professor. He said that when writer's block hits, the best thing we can do as a writer is to power through. We do that by practicing, meaning we write every day. Sometimes it may be like trudging up a hill of quicksand, but when you get into a routine, things become a bit easier.
And you may think, like I do all too often, I don't have time for creative writing right now. I have this homework to do, or this TV show to watch. If you too are like me in this way, I feel for you. However, if this is something we are truly committed to, it deserves our attention.
The same poetry Professor always said that the greatest gift we could give poetry was our undivided attention, yet I can't help but find the connotations with writing as well. If we put all of ourselves into our writing, it gets better. Why? Because it's all you.
There's a poem by Anne Bradstreet called "An Author to Her Book," and in it she personifies her work, yet the way with which she does it is the most relatable thing I think I've ever read as a writer. She writes,
"Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, expos’d to publick view,
Made thee in raggs, halting to th’ press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judg).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could:
I wash’d thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joynts to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run’st more hobling then is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun Cloth, i’ th’ house I find.
In this array ’mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam.
In Criticks hands, beware thou dost not come;
And take thy way where yet thou art not known,
If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none:
And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,
Which caus’d her thus to send thee out of door."
It's a rather old poem, the first American poem actually, but it strikes me to the cord. The way in which Bradstreet tries to make her offspring, i.e. her book, pleasing to one's eye is just so powerful. Because our work is our child in a way. We birth it, dress it, train it so that when it goes outside - into the world - people won't laugh at it or criticize it. Sometimes, it's still ugly after all of our effort, and like Bradstreet we have to send it away - either out into the world or in a file hidden deep in your hard drive. Either way, it's a powerful image and one that gives me inspiration.
Yet, I still struggle sometimes. This bought of "The Block" is particularly vile. However, dramatics aside, I know that I'll be back at it again at some point. It may not be when I want it, but until then I will refine and practice my art. It may not be my best work, but at least I'll be sharpening my creative instincts, like a sword to a whetstone.
