On “Writer’s Block”
I don’t believe in writer’s block, but I do suffer from it at times. What I mean is that I don’t believe writers are especially prone to creative stuckness and stagnation, but humans get blocked all the time. Human Block is a real and pervasive problem. We look for the fun (albeit challenging) path that we took for granted just yesterday and find ourselves staring into a howling white blizzard of blank pages. Musicians get stage-fright; downhill skiers (I’m guessing) have days when the mountains look extra steep and perilous and they wish they’d stayed in bed; chefs get sick of finding new ways to use up zucchini; and sometimes I found myself drawing and redrawing a box around the date at the top of the page, not writing anything, wondering where all the words and ideas went and what the point of this whole poetry thing is, and stewing in that foul mix of terror and boredom we call writer’s block.
When I hit a patch of writer’s block this June, I stopped trying to write poems and instead started trying to write through the block itself, to see what it wanted to tell me, by jotting answers to my ever-growing List of questions I find it helpful to ask myself when I feel blocked:
Where do I feel stuck in my body? Is there a physical/health need or problem to tend to before I focus on writing?
Where do I feel stuck in my life? Is there a decision I need to make?
Do I need to thank someone or repay a debt?
Do I need to offer an apology to someone?
Do I need to quit a habit or change a routine in order to free up energy for writing?
Do I need to say no to someone or something?
Am I not getting enough information/stimulation for my brain to engage with? Do I need a trip to the museum / zoo / library for inspiration?
Or is my brain overloaded to the point of numbness? Do I need a walk / a nap / some restorative yoga?
Is the writer’s block wrapped around all my writing—i.e. is something in my life outside writing occupying mental bandwidth, is there something I need to tackle before I get back to writing?
Or is the writer’s block lodged in a specific piece/project—i.e. is there something waiting to be revealed by this particular work that I don’t want to know or share yet? If so, what might it be?
This time around I found that my block lifted after I wrote thank-you letter to a wonderful high-school teacher of mine who is retiring this year (a task that jogged some memories that were useful for my current project) and went to see a chiropractor for some back pain that had been bothering me for months (which has helped me sit more comfortably while writing AND prompted me to become aware of a situation where I was “bending over backwards” to please someone else at the expense of my own writing time). As soon as I had done these things, I had plenty to throw at the blank page. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Or maybe sometimes Human Block can be sifted and shifted and resolved with a bit of patient attention.
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