Block Head
May 19, 2009, by Christie Healey
Christie Healey has an “arid condition” and she’s trying all sorts of ways to remedy the situation.
When I first started to write a lot of people recommended Natalie Goldberg’s book Writing Down the Bones. It’s a marvelous entry into writing that helps you free the writer within. Of late I think I have not only freed the writer within, but she wandered off and didn’t leave a note. The eternally effervescent Connie Stetson has described my arid condition as “blog clog.”
Now people say that writing is not easy and if it were everyone would be doing it. Well, as far as I can tell, everyone is doing it. Blogs abound, they spill out every time I check my email. People are writing about everything all the time, putting together interesting, funny and provocative collections of words. And I sit here struggling to find something to say. I set off down a story path and within a matter of 70 words or so, I become aware of an increasing pressure on my forehead. What is it? It’s the literary version of a dead end, up against a stonewall of the imagination, no way out, no thread to pick up, the string has run out. I go back to the start to see if I can find another path.
I walk in my garden, plant flowers and vegetables waiting for my muse to return. I even beg the rabbits to come out and eat at will. I read books and wonder how the writer came to create these huge stories. I did write a piece about a recent book I’d read and submitted it for this blog. I asked our Head Blog Goddess what she thought. “It’s a well-written essay, but not really blog material.” Ouch! She was right, it was an okay book review but there was not a personal note of interest in it.
All day long at work I draft thousands and thousands of words into contracts so that our clients can get on with their business, sharing their stories in musical and visual forms. For me to tell my stories I have to cram all “in the events,” “in no events,” ”hereins” and “whereas” in the no-no word closet and slam the door. But, they sneak out.
The other night I turned to alcohol. It was wonderful and completely therapeutic. That naughty little muse had been hiding in the Beaujolais. I wrote a killer blog and drifted off to sleep, contented. I awoke with a headache and a blank screen. Trying to recreate the piece was as easy as remembering a dream, and made about as much sense.
In a couple of weeks I am off to Hawaii to spend my birthday with my son and meet his partner. We are going to spend a few days on the Big Island. There’s a volcano and I hear there’s a goddess up there. May be I’ll ask her for help and make a sacrifice. She might like a nice fat bunny from my garden.
May 19th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Christie, you’re in good company:
“The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.” ~Vladimir Nabakov, Russian writer.
“There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” ~Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith, sportswriter.
“Without writer’s block, my family’s beds would go unmade, toilets would become breeding grounds for mosquitoes and the laundry hamper would grow mushrooms.” ~Prudence Baird, yours truly.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Oh that pesky blog clog. With a bit of Draino and time, it too shall pass. When you meet Pele at the volcano, put in a good word for me, would you?
This article “Hack Your Way Out of Writer’s Block” by Merlin Man provides some good tips. It starts with talk to a monkey and ends with this great story:
“On the other hand, remember Laurence Olivier.
One day on the set of Marathon Man, Dustin Hoffman showed up looking like shit. Totally exhausted and practically delirious. Asked what the problem was, Hoffman said that at this point in the movie, his character will have been awake for 24 hours, so he wanted to make sure that he had been too. Laurence Olivier shook his head and said, ‘Oh, Dusty, why don’t you just try acting?’
So, when all else fails, just try writing.”
http://www.43folders.com/2004/11/18/hack-your-way-out-of-writers-block
May 19th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Inspiration comes when it comes. There’s nothing to be done for it but to wait. Or, you can do that nifty little exercise from “Writing the Natural Way,” a book that helped me SO MUCH. The exercise engages the left side of the brain. You just write a word (that represents an idea you have for a story/blog), circle it, then free associate. Whatever word comes to mind around that word, write it down, circle it, and draw a line from the main circled word to the new word. Then you keep going. Keep free associating from the word in the center and from each new word that comes up. When you’ve done that until you feel you’ve run out of ideas, stop, blur your eyes and look at the page for a few minutes. It’s like magic. Somehow an idea will spring up out of nowhere, and you will be able to write down the first sentence and keep going from there. Don’t be surprised if what comes out has nothing to do with what you originally thought. Good luck!
May 19th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Thank you so much empathetic blog sisters for the block busting tips. I am going to blur my eyes, open a vein and hack my way out, and when I’ve done with all that I’ll just try writing. Seriously though, you have given me some great ideas for unclogging. Thank you again!
May 19th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Having a martini with Cathikins always helps me. We always come up with blog ideas over good olives, good friendship, and good vodka. Good luck, sister Bloggerina.
May 20th, 2009 at 8:34 am
It took me longer than I’d like to admit before I realized that my keyboard doesn’t spell out B-L-O-G in the third row of keys. However, I find it very interesting that B & G are lefties, and L & O are righties. Is there a deep meaning in this?
Which reminds me of that great Gloria Steinem quote from her graduation address at Smith College (loosely translated): Back in her day, it was necessary for all women graduating from college to know how to type. Now that it’s equally important that men know how, as well, it’s called “keyboarding.”
Ha-ha-ha. I’m laughing all the way to the bank, where I deposit my salary check that is only 2/3 of a man’s paycheck for the same work…which is keyboarding, no doubt.