Writer's block, an owner's guide: A passion for writer’s block

A hundred years ago I thought I was gonna become a doctoral student one day - after my kids grew up (in Northern Europe this actually happens), I’d live for two or three years on a romantically small research grant, write a thesis and then return to real life.

Then one day in 1999 I woke up in Southern California. So much for real life!

Ladies and gentlemen, getting a doctorate is different in America. It involves going to classes, writing papers, all that… student stuff. Really. Years of it. Feck that! So I changed my plan and I did something else.

Five years later, here I am in the thick of a Californian doctoral program, taking class after class, racking up these strange American “units” and “GPAs” an’ that. Why? Because I love what I’m doing. I’d be reading the same books anyway. Doing it this way, I get to interact with world-class people who have already hacked paths through the same territory. It doesn’t just reduce wear on my machete, although that’s important and saves time: it makes me better informed, gives me new tools and inspirations, gives me membership of… wait, I was just about to write a boilerplate statement I hadn’t really thought about. Well, membership of some community or other that I can’t name right now.

The point? I had one around here somewhere. Let’s see.

While you’re waiting, here’s a point that was not in my mind when I fired up the computer. Being in this program supports me in my writing. It gives me deadlines and it gives me an audience. Otherwise I would not write so much or so soon or at all. Writing it down is essential - without recording it, and without making room in my head, I can’t move on. Writing it down allows me to think the next thing, the more advanced thing, the thing that might touch you dear reader in some new way that you might otherwise never be touched.

The point? Yeah, ok. The reason I opened the blogging software this morning was to type an excuse, an apology. I wanted to whine at you that I’ve been working hard; I’ve completed two and a half of those school papers in the last few days and I have another one and a half on the stocks right now. Why not be typing them at this moment? Well, why should I, everything is under control. Also, because I have to use Windows for a couple hours and the papers are in the Linux partition, like you care about how my laptop is set up. And the apology is for not being here with you, not adding material to Today I Write, and I just wanted to let you know it’s not because I’m not writing, it’s because I am. The blog is still serving its purpose for me, still liberating me from my head.

And a third point, which also wasn’t in my mind at the start. I’m duplicating this post into a separate journal which is specifically about my experience of writing about creativity. That’s kinda three levels removed from the real world. Next thing you know I’ll be writing about the experience of writing about the experience of… y’know. It’s a school requirement and (not by coincidence) it’s directly about what I care about and what I want to share with whoever you are.

So the point of all that was that I’m still here taking responsibility for Today I Write and I’m still writing what I need to be writing and these two things are not always the same thing.

Published on October 11, 2004 at 8:33 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/a-passion-for-writers-block.html

Today I Write