Writer's block, an owner's guide: Good days and wrenching days

Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham says this about writer’s block: “When I was younger, I became obsessed with trying to chart my good days and my bad. Was it related to sleep, diet, sex? I tried all kinds of variations, with the grim purpose of youth. Celibacy the day before a writing day? I’ll give it a try. What about sugar, caffeine, alcohol? More, or less, of each, and in what quantities? Many trials were conducted.”

The results of his trials, and much else on the subject, over here at npr.org.

But what I find even more interesting than that is when he says “Here’s the funny thing — a month or so later, I can’t tell what I wrote on the ecstatic days from what I wrote on the wrenching ones. The lines that seemed so good when I wrote them turn out, later on, to be neither better nor worse.” That’s encouraging, isn’t it, on a bad day?

And discouraging on a bad one, I suppose, but let’s not go there.

For it’s the end of November and I’ve completed my month of research data collection! and now I have to analyze it all. Looks like a simple job this year, but who knows where studying the numbers may take me. I promise to let you know.

Published on November 30, 2006 at 7:51 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/good-days-and-wrenching-days.html