Hello all.
It’s been a while since my last post, and I apologize for that. That’s partly due to my class schedule but mostly due to the bane of any writer’s existence: The Dreaded Writer’s Block.
When it comes, it comes hard. It’s a cruel mixture of sensations, feeling a bit like a dentist’s anesthesia on your brain. Everything is numb and a few beats slower than usual. Your fingers suddenly feel like the size of Christmas hams as they hover warily over the keyboard. And if that wasn’t enough, it’s virtually impossible to figure out when The Dreaded Writer’s Block is going to strike and how long it’s going to last.
Hell, it was like pulling teeth just to sit down and write this simple post.
So while there won’t be a chapter posted this week, I just wanted to share a few thoughts on this common mental freeze. While it can be daunting to overcome, it can be tamed. And the answer, as with so many questions about writing, is deceptively simple. Click “New Document” and start pounding. It doesn’t matter if what you’re writing is pure drivel.
When Bob Dylan was writing “Like a Rolling Stone,” his seminal tune, he started with what he described as twenty pages of “vomit.” What emerged was his magnum opus.
So don’t beat your head against the wall about writer’s block. With a little elbow grease, it can be reversed.
Here’s a clip from one of the co-writer’s of the Oscar-winning film crash talking about how he gets over writer’s block:
