It's a hard fact of writing that sometimes the pen flows, the keyboard chatters, the words appear and cooperate...and sometimes they do not. And while that's a normal thing one takes in stride, when it goes on and on––and when not only will the words not come but the mind is just blank––it causes strong feelings ranging from frustration to terror. The 'what ifs' well up. It's traumatic. What do you do?
The simple answer is...do something else. If I try to write prose, especially if it's of the dry sort, poems come creeping in. This works sometimes. Pull out unfinished poems to work on. Thumb through old journals for scratches that have potential. Organize your desk. Weed. Take walks. Rake leaves. Bake bread. The rote nature of doing something you know how to do physically sometimes opens the doors of language and the imagination.
The state of the writer's mind and being has a lot to do with why Writer's Block falls like a hammer. In my adult years, I experienced deaths of two close family members--the first one threw me into a writer's block that lasted nearly a year. The second time, it lasted about 9 months, but that time I recognized what was happening––not-writing is part of my grieving process, whether I want it to be or not. I've learned to honor that, and not panic. So if you are blocked, take your own emotional temperature. How are you doing? Be easy on yourself.
In my first poetry collection, Sightlines, I have a poem about the time after my mother's death when I couldn't write anything--or at least not anything that mattered. Look for the poem in my next post.
Comments