Hello, Blogosphere. It’s been quite a while, has it not? And what was the reason, you say, for such a profoundly long absence? Well, didn’t you read the title?
It’s an ordeal that every practitioner of the written word suffers through, a battle that every soldier whose weapon is the pen must fight through down to the last drop of their ink-diluted blood. It’s a strain on the mind and a mist that envelops each train of thought until said train should derail off the tracks and into a heap of mediocrity and lack of inspiration/motivation. It’s a cage that traps the bright ideas of your imagination, and no matter how wide that world known as your imagination expands, the cage keeps expanding with it, leaving no hope for escape, no solace in future liberation.
Alright. I’m getting a little melodramatic here. In fact, I’m overexerting my efforts just writing this blog post. And why do I say that? I told you to read the title of this post.
Simply put, writer’s block is very real when you are left to your own devices. It is simple enough to write down your thoughts about a subject or a prompt that a teacher or professor has presented to you. It is almost as if your teacher is inciting an argument, a discussion, as he presents a topic to you and an essay or a classroom debate is your chance to respond- a counterargument so to speak. It is easy enough to write upon the theories and thoughts that the great old ones before us spoke of (easy being a relative term, mind you, for nothing profound was ever easy).
But, what of the writer of fiction left to his own thoughts? The craftsman of his own fantasies who must build his own world from the ground up, who must envision, nurture, and shape characters who he must know better than himself, even. Such is the fate of the one who believes he must write fiction. Such is the fate I find myself connected to.
Writing fiction, in essence, is writing out your whole imagination. Such could be said of every art form- you are using the tools at your disposal and the talents you’ve been gifted with to portray your imagination (and, if you’re ballsy enough, convey a profound truth through it). At first glance, it looks like tremendous fun, and truth be told- nothing could be more fun. Your imagination carries traces of who you are throughout it. The stories you tell, the songs you sing, and the pictures you paint all portray who you are.
And that is why, with all this fun, comes fear. Fear that you might not be doing your vivid ideas justice because you are afraid the art you are making is bland. You are afraid that this portrayal pales in comparison to the actual thing and makes a mockery of the original vision. You are afraid of failing because your art portrays you. If your art turns out to be mediocre, what does that say about you?
The struggle is all too real for the lover of the written word- and that is why he develops writer’s block. In truth, I have no scientific evidence to back this up. I do not have an account of another author’s experiences nor has anyone shared their own struggle with this peculiar phenomenon with me. This is me, simply pouring my heart out, about a brain crippling condition that has hampered my growth for the past few months. Whatever you have read here finds its roots in what I have gone through.
How am I trying to overcome writer’s block. Simple. I’m writing.
Truly, it is that simple. There comes a time where you have to pull yourself out of the mire and get yourself back on track. Buy a book of writing prompts. Write poems and songs. Write down that idea that you had just now, it doesn’t even have to be a story. Do I always practice what I preach? No. But I am taking whatever steps I need to to get back on track.
It’s not too late to begin writing about that idea you had a few months ago, even an idea you had a few years ago. It’s not too late to release another blog post even if it has been six months. It’s not too late to write about your day in a journal even if the last entry was signed last June. It does not matter if you hit a road block and stopped. The question is: will you quit?
I, for one, despite all the discouragement that I face, will never quit writing. It’s in my blood. It’s not just what my body does- it’s what my soul does, too. It’s a part of me. It’s what God wove into me when He made my tapestry. And writer’s block can never take any of that away. It can stop me for a season, but it will never kill me.
a mind in rainbows 