Writer's block, an owner's guide: December update

Well, I don’t usually see the point of blog entries saying that the blog is still live and not saying anything else, but here it is December already and I think readers, or anyone stumbling across this site for the first time, might want to know whether they are looking at an historical document or at something that’s vibrant with un-unleashed creative force. I’ll let you answer that question for yourself, but here are some hints. Let me summarize where I was while you couldn’t see me:

1. For the first time (and it wasn’t my first try) I’m a NaNoWriMo winner!

2. More to our purpose here, I also completed the journal that I told you I planned to keep. Doing that taught me some things about my own mental process. You know. The kind of things that are not exactly unconscious or subconscious but which we do choose to keep tucked away in the back of the bottom drawer of consciousness. The things the mind does for reasons of its own which it’s not willing to look at in a grown-up rational way without the help of a therapist such as me. In my case an example is the fact, always available to me and always ignored, that whenever I get caught up and am doing what I ought to be doing, that is the very moment when I (am tempted to) give myself a break and then I (can) fall behind after being on top of things for only a few hours.

And I say all this without having even read over the journal yet. I wonder what wisdom is hidden in there among the dross of daydreaming and self-judgement.

3. Most excitingly of all, I completed the data collection phase of my study of the writing process in other writers. Of my 107 volunteers, 95 actually took part in the project. Here too, I’ve already learned some things without even having started a thorough analysis. I am very hopeful of being able to tell writers something that’ll actually be useful.

So in weeks ahead, I shall have things to report here about our subject, the psychology of writer’s block. Not today, I’m afraid. But for the best of reasons. I’ve been writing!

And your response?

Published on December 5, 2005 at 9:39 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/december-update.html

Today I Write