Tuesday, March 25, 2008

the writer's block that isn't really writer's block

"writer's block" is a term widely well-known and used. people from businessmen, to novelists, to creative writing students who need to finish a workshop piece preferably before they graduate (insert huge blinking, neon down arrow above my head here) will tell you that it is everything but fun.

ask anyone and they can easily say that "writer's block" means you have no ideas, your mind is blank, the creative juices have stopped flowing, that once seemingly endless well of brilliant plots and characters and sentences has suddenly run dry, and so on and so forth. choose whichever you like, it's all the same game, the light bulb is officially OFF.

currently, when earlier trying to write my story for intermediate fiction (where you'd like to think if i made it this far i should be able to pull fresh light bulbs out of my hoodie's pockets), i assumed i had come to such a point-no good thoughts for miles. of course, this wasn't obvious until after i had watched 3 hours worth of shows i had taped on TV, checked my e-mail 1800 hundred times (within 4 minutes), gotten something to eat, changed my hairdo from down to ponytail to bun back to ponytail then let it down again, and seriously contemplated taking a nap.

once i returned my attention to the half completed work in the word document in front of me and that damned cursor that seemed to shout, "FINISH YOUR STORY! FINISH YOUR STORY!" with each unrelenting blink, i realized that it wasn't a
lack of ideas that was keeping me from continuing, but rather a surplus of ideas that was the problem. there are so many great lines and places i want the story to go that i can't get a handle on just one, so when i reach into my bag of creative goodies, i just come up empty handed.

i'm willing to say that this is more frustrating than having nothing to put down at all. how could that be you ask? because at least if there was nothing going in that head of yours you could actually enjoy all the other things you were doing when you were supposed to be writing your piece, as opposed to having 92387 ideas bouncing around and off each other constantly randomly popping up to remind you they're there, but still out of your usable grasp, and therefore ruining whatever it is you are currently enjoying.

now, i know you may be thinking, "well, if you can write this post, why not your story?" and let me tell you, my friends, if i had that answer, i'd be tapping into the slight bit of writing ability i'm apparently still able to access and would be writing my story instead of watching the jonas brothers on dancing with the stars. but hey, who ever said cute boys couldn't be inspiring? :-P

wish me luck!

2 comments:

sarawr said...

well i wish i had that problem :p i thought you said you were writing something in here about trees?

anyway, hope you're through and it's not thirty pages long and you got some sleep.

Anonymous said...

oh my goodness. you're incredibly right. i didn't realize it until i read this, but that's exactly my problem. i have a gig in five days and no new songs. :( i'm struggling to write anything. but i have a million lines for a million different songs, just not enough lines related to make one song. it's incredibly frustrating. i hope you story worked out well. :)