For me, the hardest part of being a writer isn’t the actual writing, it’s the sitting down to write in the first place.
And it is hard. Don’t let anyone fool you.
I see writers’ communities with message boards dedicated to battling writer’s block. Someone will post that they desperately need help because they haven’t written for days, weeks, months, or even years.
But the length of time seems irrelevant to most of the other posters, who simply tsk and say that clearly there’s something wrong with the OP’s story/characters/etc. (even though they haven’t actually read the OP’s story), or they’ll cite several other common reasons to explain why that person isn’t writing, coupled with several cliché solutions to fix it.
These posts piss me off. I don’t think writer’s block is so easy a creature to pin down. It has far more possible causes than one could ever hope to list.
Then there’s the people who’ve actually suffered from writer’s block and overcame it. They offer what worked for them–And that’s really the best anybody can do. Posts like this are my favorite when I’m looking for inspiration. They give me hope that, yes, writer’s block can be overcome.
I’ve come across a book written by someone who seems to ‘get it’. If you sometimes struggle like me, or even if you don’t, I highly recommend that you click the following link and read the excerpt: http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/#book-top
The book is called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. The excerpt inspired me so much, I plan on reading it as soon as I finish Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind (which I am most of the way through).
[Reply]
Nick Enlowe Reply:
August 15th, 2011 at 6:43 am
Those posts piss me off in a ‘good way’. That probably sounds weird, but it’s like how sometimes you just need someone to tell you that you can’t do something just so you can prove them wrong.
[Reply]
Nick Enlowe Reply:
August 15th, 2011 at 6:44 am
[Reply]
Comment by Merrilee — August 15, 2011 @ 1:46 am
I’d call it psychological anxiety, which sounds ridiculous because what else is anxiety but a facsimile of something we’re mentally afraid of? But it’s not, at least to me, it’s just this weird ‘loss’ where I feel like my hands are tied and I can’t think, let alone write, anything creative.
Anyway, I’m blabbering. Onward.
[Reply]
Nick Enlowe Reply:
August 16th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
[Reply]
Comment by Ryan G. Sanders — August 15, 2011 @ 5:09 pm