Writer's block, an owner's guide: “Writer’s block:” exactly what this time?

So, imaginary reader (okay, there are people out there, I just don’t know your names yet) the gaps between my posts are getting longer. That happens with new blogs, yes; but this last break has been quite long. What have I been doing? Do I want to tell you the truth about that?

I don’t call it writer’s block; I take Susan Day’s advice and call it a break in production; I take Dennis Palumbo’s advice and welcome it as a creative tension.

What is really going on is just what I said last time, just that I set myself the task of writing a particular post and it turned out to be a difficult one and somehow I didn’t turn to writing something else. “Something else” could have been a diversion or discussion, like this one. Or I could have leapfrogged the problem post and written some later part of the Today I Write project. Or some earlier part - goodness knows there are enough topics I told you I’d come back to!

So there are three possibly different questions here which have something to do with our subject. (1) Why was that post hard to write - and it still is - and (2) why did I let that small problem with one task forbid me to do anything on my other tasks and (3) can I honestly claim that ten days of not writing was gestation time?

Well, let’s see.

(1) the item was hard to write simply because, when I came to look at the subject, it was a large complex one and I couldn’t see how to summarize it or where to start on it. And now, I think I do know how to do that (although I’ll have to go back and complete the reading first)

(3) and to that extent I can claim to have been successfully gestating the item. But that’s no excuse for not writing something else. But here’s the thing. The other writing project that I would have got on with, a thing about reversal theory, is one with which I have a very similar problem. So I had no easy place to run.

(2) I don’t know. This, I think, would be a key discovery that could help me produce more of the stuff I can produce and want to produce. The way to find that key is probably to sit here quietly concentrating on it. Please hold…

[for the benefit of search engines, a message from our sponsors: writer's block writers block writer's block writers block writer's block writers block. I now return you to your regularly scheduled post]

[days later] …well, it’s not about the difficulty of blogging. For blogging is easy and fun unless you set yourself up to fail by making it hard, for example by deciding what to write about before you know what you want to say or how you want to say it. Which is maybe one of the ways we make writing hard in general, ya think? If you know for sure that the next thing you will write is chapter seven, doesn’t that remove some of the fun and freedom and doesn’t that also make it harder to be spontaneous and creative and make it easier to fail? Am I making sense, reader - this means you - let me know.

No, it’s not about that. It’s about the other project lurking behind the blog, the other thing I “want” to be writing right now, the thing I’ve done the preparation for, the thing where I know what I want to write about but I don’t know exactly what I want to say. It’s ok to leave things on the back burner, because it’s good that they simmer. But leave them there too long, without attention, and they burn and the whole kitchen stinks. Or your fire burns out and they get cold and you know you have killed them with neglect. You know you have betrayed your gift again.

If you’ll excuse me, I have something I need to write in another place. There will be a planned pause in Today I Write. This gives me permission not to blame myself for it. How long is the pause? Maybe seven days, maybe seven hours. My guess is that by giving myself permission not to be worrying about the blog, I can fool myself into enjoying the other thing and getting it done.

Ah, reader, how quickly we turn all our fun projects into chores! My dream, one purpose of Today I Write, is to develop new ways to turn them back.

Published on September 4, 2004 at 9:01 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/writers-block-exactly-what-this-time.html

Today I Write