the world belongs to the brave

Writer’s Block, you nemesis of every aspiring writer, you bottomless pit where ideas go to die, you dark angel of despair lurking on my shoulder… Oh, woe is me.

I have journals dating back 16 years. I have boxes filled with diaries and notebooks, short stories, novel drafts, poetry. I have archives online and on my hard-drive with all sorts of fictional and non-fictional writing. But since March I’ve barely been able to squeeze out a single well-phrased paragraph. That was when  I hit a creative full stop, a stress and restlessness induced writer’s block that hasn’t let go of me yet. Even writing articles for the local, English-language entertainment magazine feels like pushing my way through dough: slow and painfully frustrating. I’ve referred to my writer’s block as “phrasing dyslexia”. For five months the words, which have always come easy, are jumping around in my head and I can’t put them into eloquent sentences. They seem blurry, just out of reach, like something you can see only in the corner of your eye but when you turn your head you can’t quite catch sigh of it.

I’ve made a couple of attempts to break out of the writer’s block. The problem is that writing is something I need to do regularly. Creativity is not just a switch you can flick on and off, you’ve got to keep it flowing. Even days when you’re not inspired to write anything, you have to write. Sit down and write half a page and maybe that will be enough to spark your imagination so you can carry on writing another page. Despite my feeble attempts, I have not be able to get back to writing regularly. There are days when I believe that I will choke in my sleep if I don’t create something. The Block leaves me frustrated, uninspired and embarrassed. On top of that, it’s a frustration that comes sprinkled with just enough self-doubt to get a minor identity crisis rolling;  Who am I if I don’t write? What purpose does this life carry if I don’t create? Why am I here, why do I do the things I do, if it just lands me in this inspirational wasteland where ideas dry up and crumble to dust?

I want to be like this dude.

The thing is, after five months “I’ve got writer’s block” just isn’t good enough as an excuse anymore. It’s clear that sitting around twiddling my thumbs waiting for creativity to unblock itself isn’t leading anywhere, so what to do? Maybe it’s time to try to crawl out of that bottomless pit, show the angel of despair who’s boss and give CPR to the dying ideas. Today I stumbled over a blog post called Return to Writing in Six Steps which, shock smock, gives a six-step guide to how to just simply get on with it. The ideas aren’t exactly new to me, but it’s none the less good to be reminded of these simple and oh so difficult steps. Perhaps I’ll spend another five months producing nothing but heart-breaking, eye-watering rubbish, but I believe that once I manage to get into my old creative routine again, sooner or later something good will come out, even if it will just be accidental. So what’s the plan? I have no plan, just… pick up the pen and get on with it.

To the Batmobile!

◊ Alex