Creative Block

Writer’s block, musician’s block, Lego creator’s.. block [funny?]. Whatever creative thing you’re into, there’s a block for that. Blocks galore! Whatever medium in which you create, you will be blocked! There’s no stopping it. So what the fuck do we do about it?

I’m currently writing a novel, and I’m not even experiencing writer’s block right now. I finished my first draft, and the second draft is going a bit more slowly than I had anticipated, but I’m doing well. I’m not experiencing the dreaded block right now. Yet here I am, writing about the unstoppable block. 

Oh boy, how doth that writer’s block ache my futile brain. Here’s what happens: you’ve got some energy, maybe by way of caffeine or other chemicals. You’ve got your medium: your guitar, your typewriter, your computer, whatever it is. You’ve got some time: it’s the weekend or your day off, or you finished your schoolwork and chores, or whatever. You’re all ready to go express yourself in your creative passion and.. nothing. The prevailing feeling is one of being stuck. It’s like running in a dream, you really want to do it, but you just can’t seem to get anywhere. 

What does one do when one is stuck? I can only tell you about my own experience. I’m only human after all! I don’t know everything! So my creative passion is writing, so I write, and I get writer’s block. The writer’s block demon comes in and clouds my mind, preventing words from forming. And I say, “Die, monster! You don’t belong in this world!”

Anyway, what typically happens is that I sit down to work on my big project, my book, and I get stuck. I will struggle against the block for a bit, to see if I can get through it, but soon enough I have to admit that I’ve got writer’s block. What I’ve found is that writer’s block is sometimes specific. So I try to write something, anything else. There are plenty of google docs that I have with very basic ideas for essays or rants or opinion pieces or short stories or whatever. I scroll through those and see if one of those piques my interest. If I’m lucky, I’ll open one and get to work, and it’ll flow easily. Then at least I’ll be writing something.

But alas, sometimes that does not work. Damn! Foiled again! But wait, I still have hope. If that strategy does not work, I move down the line. I will pull out a piece of paper or cute stationery and think about my friends, who I love dearly. I’ll take out a ballpoint pen and write them a beautiful, endearing letter, talking about my life, asking about theirs, and cracking some jokes about this silly world.

Should that fail, I break out my spooky journal with all of my mind’s secret workings. There, now I can write about things I did, things that happened to me, and my emotions regarding all of that. Do I feel happy? Do I feel sad? What’s happening? Am I feeling healthy? Do I love anyone? And so on. This is the final safety net, as it were. If I open my journal, and I still can’t find anything to write, then there is nothing left to do but admit defeat. 

Maybe, if you’re a musician, an analogous series of steps would be: sitting down to write a song, you can’t, try to work on another song you’ve been writing, you can’t, try to learn a new song, you can’t decide, practice a song you already know, you can’t, practice scales and other shit, and so on. Or something like that, I’m not a good guitar player.

All right, so I’ve been defeated by the writer’s block demon, so now I have to do something else, which is very scary. I like to go for a walk, or if I’ve got more time, go for a whole hike somewhere. That can be enjoyable, and often it leads to my brain churning, which might help me write the next time I choose to do so. A lot of the time, I’ll just read a book. Or I’ll do some of those annoying chores I gotta do like paying bills, which is disgusting. But then I can get it over with. Phew! It’s in the past now! But it’s affecting the present somehow, because now [the present] I have fewer moneys in my account so I can’t purchase things. How sad. Hey, that’s something I could write about in my journal.

What I used to do, once admitting defeat [I still do it sometimes, but not nearly as much], is smoke some weed, the olde wacky tobaccy. Sometimes that’ll just defeat the writer’s block demon then and there, cause I’ll just think of something hilarious or interesting to write about. If not, I’ll just go for that walk, high as a kite. But like I said, I don’t do that much of that any more. 

In general, that’s how I deal with writer’s block. I have a kind of flow chart of other things to write, so at least I’m writing something. If, one by one, they are all felled by the demon, I have to just admit defeat and do something else, and I usually have a few go-to things for that. 

How was that for a conclusion paragraph? Restating the main points, my teachers would be so proud.

P.S. Oh! By the way, I used to have this idea, like 7 years ago that I just remembered. Wouldn’t it be funny if there was some kind of rectangular prism, where all sides were some kind of whiteboard surface thing, where you can write and erase easily, and we’d call it the “Writer’s Block”? It would be a block.. for writing. I think I had the idea more fleshed out when I was young and full of life.