Writer's Block is Bullshit
(Day Three)
I am not feeling the writing tonight. I wasn't feeling it last night, either, but I'm only three days into my personal challenge, and I can't give up yet. Here's the thing, though -- I think this is exactly why I need to see this 60 days through. It's too easy to fall back on the "I'm tired," or "I have no energy because I worked all day," or "I'm not inspired." I've made a habit of it. That's why I fell so far behind on the actual writing part of Project 365.
The more I do this, the easier it should get. Right? It's like running. Plus I think it's good for me to have to write about different topics and not just ramble on and on about myself.
That being said, tonight I'm going to ramble on and on about myself. I have a book called 642 Things to Write About, which my brother's fiancee got me for Christmas. I was flipping through it tonight, trying to find something to write about for day three, and NOTHING felt doable. In fact many of them felt impossible. If I were feeling brave, maybe I would have picked one of the impossible ones and done it anyway, but I'm not feeling brave. So I finally settled on this one: What does writer's block feel like?
This is a fairly easy topic. I can write from my own point of view, and it's fairly low pressure, because who are you to say my feelings on writer's block are incorrect? You can't. I can be as abstract and mooshy as I want.
So here we go. Writer's block feels like...Impossible. Imagine Impossible was a noun, and that's what it would be. An Impossible. Daunting. Not that writer's block is daunting, but writer's block makes the act of writing seem daunting. There's absolutely no way you can get the words to come together in a form that actually means something or expresses 100% what you wanted it to express. Why are you trying? Give up. This is clearly the perfect time for you to go check Facebook, or clean out the pantry, or go pluck out that one weird hair out of your eyebrow.
Writer's block is a heavy ogre sitting on your shoulder telling you you're wasting your time. You're not meant for this. Go back to doing what's easy. It's a confusion that makes all the sentences and all the words suddenly jumble so you can't remember what you were trying to say, and anyway clearly you aren't getting anywhere near saying it. It's the voice saying that there are 100 ways to express this thought, but you picked the one that is farthest from the best way to do it. Maybe you should spend an hour redoing that one sentence.
Writer's block is bullshit.
I am not feeling the writing tonight. I wasn't feeling it last night, either, but I'm only three days into my personal challenge, and I can't give up yet. Here's the thing, though -- I think this is exactly why I need to see this 60 days through. It's too easy to fall back on the "I'm tired," or "I have no energy because I worked all day," or "I'm not inspired." I've made a habit of it. That's why I fell so far behind on the actual writing part of Project 365.
The more I do this, the easier it should get. Right? It's like running. Plus I think it's good for me to have to write about different topics and not just ramble on and on about myself.
That being said, tonight I'm going to ramble on and on about myself. I have a book called 642 Things to Write About, which my brother's fiancee got me for Christmas. I was flipping through it tonight, trying to find something to write about for day three, and NOTHING felt doable. In fact many of them felt impossible. If I were feeling brave, maybe I would have picked one of the impossible ones and done it anyway, but I'm not feeling brave. So I finally settled on this one: What does writer's block feel like?
This is a fairly easy topic. I can write from my own point of view, and it's fairly low pressure, because who are you to say my feelings on writer's block are incorrect? You can't. I can be as abstract and mooshy as I want.
So here we go. Writer's block feels like...Impossible. Imagine Impossible was a noun, and that's what it would be. An Impossible. Daunting. Not that writer's block is daunting, but writer's block makes the act of writing seem daunting. There's absolutely no way you can get the words to come together in a form that actually means something or expresses 100% what you wanted it to express. Why are you trying? Give up. This is clearly the perfect time for you to go check Facebook, or clean out the pantry, or go pluck out that one weird hair out of your eyebrow.
Writer's block is a heavy ogre sitting on your shoulder telling you you're wasting your time. You're not meant for this. Go back to doing what's easy. It's a confusion that makes all the sentences and all the words suddenly jumble so you can't remember what you were trying to say, and anyway clearly you aren't getting anywhere near saying it. It's the voice saying that there are 100 ways to express this thought, but you picked the one that is farthest from the best way to do it. Maybe you should spend an hour redoing that one sentence.
Writer's block is bullshit.