WRITERS BLOCK DISEASE
The worst thing about being a writer is that occasionally one encounters the horrible beast known as writers block. Let me tell you that facing a 300 foot tall scaly monster from the mind is not all lightness and fun. Anything but. Your once-proud stories, the ones you crafted lovingly every night through the heat and snow have now been ignored for weeks (or months) and stare at you from the desktop.
Every night you sit down and wonder if tonight the magic will return like some mystical gift from the gods. And when it doesn‚t you spend the time either huddled miserably over the keyboard, the sweat beading your forehead, your hands shaking, or you give up and read a book hoping to be inspired by someone elses magic. You scour Heinlein, Bradbury, Brin, even suck-ass Robert Jordan, looking for an unsprouted seed that you can germinate into a real story. Sometimes it works, sometimes you throw up your hands in despair shouting, "I can‚t take it anymore, and start drinking.
It occurs to you that maybe Hemingway and Stephen King had the right idea when they turned to drugs to write. Sure, they rotted a lot of brain cells, but at least they got stories written...and published. But you haven't turned to drugs yet because you have got it into your little non-working mind that the real reason the stories haven't been dripping from the tips of your fingers is that your brain is dying. You remember that the headaches and lethargy come more frequently than they used to and the poisonous thought comes: "I am dying from a brain tumor."
Relax. There is no tumor growing inside your head, no alien virus infecting you, a stray bacterium from that mummy you viewed at the museum hasn't caused you to wander the streets looking for magical tana leaves. What you have is simply a case of psychological stress. That‚s right, stress. The more you think about writing, the worse the disease becomes until before you know it, you've transformed yourself from a normal (if writers can be normal ) individual, into a hypochondriac par excellance !
The cure can be found several ways. Most writers suffer from being housebound far too much. Take a walk for a few hours; enjoy what real air smells like instead of that recycled stuff you've been breathing for weeks. Visit your friends, who by now think you have died and haven't even been decent enough to invite them to your funeral. Talk with people. Stories come from real life incidents, and if you have a lack of life, well your stories are going to reflect that and be as dull as Jordan's prose.
Take a drive to someplace you've been meaning to go. Take up stargazing and be humbled by the cosmic dance; all you need are your eyes, though a pair of binoculars seem to help focus my attention. In other words, do something with your time that doesn't involve writing at all. Forget about it for awhile, the world is not going to end just because you skip a few days of eyestrain in front of the word processor.
If you can't leave the house for some reason, then listen to music and reflect on the lyrics, perhaps there's a story in them that can be tapped. Most importantly, READ. Perhaps nothing beats back the worry than taking a trip through someone else's world via paperback. You'll find that the more you read, the better you'll feel. And there is nothing quite like escaping the humdrum, wack-a-mole life than to visit some other writers world. But the important thing is to let the ideas come when they will. Don't force it, that's a one-way ticket to insanity's outhouse located in Cthulhu's backyard in sunny San Rafael. No story is worth going nuts over. If you indulge yourself and DO go nuts, who is going to write the story ? Not you certainly. You're locked up in a padded room wearing a backwards coat. Plus the nurse is ugly and about to administer a large dose of brain gravy to you. So relax.
Other things you can do if you are not the indoor type is to simply sit on your porch and watch the parade of humanity walk by. Don't forget to wave, one of them might wave back or walk over, and bing, bang, boom, you've actually got a friend. One you just may be able to put in a story. Watching people is a great hobby that has benefits most folks don't realize. If the kids out front are playing noisily, see what they're doing and pay attention. Is one kid talking to a garden statue ? There's a story ! Some teenager walks by crying. Why is she crying ? Help her by all means, but keep in mind that the question drives us. WHY is she crying ? Has her boyfriend left her; did someone discover her secret; has a small spaceship lodged in her eye ? By asking the question, we find the basis for a story. Maybe the story you write is crap, you're saying. So what ? Nobody has to see it but you. The important thing is that you write something that tickles your fancy. If the subject or story doesn't move you, it certainly won't move the reader. But I‚ve gotten off-topic. Writers do that you know.
My advice is to loosen up and be more observant. The more you see, the more questions come to mind and that my friends is a story-starter. Also the more your mind cranks it's little wheels the more productive you become. Nature abhors a vacuum and if you don't use the grand instrument of that old pink matter, nature will be more than happy to put something inside your head that you DON'T want and have no use for. It happened to Berkowitz, Dahmer, Bundy, and the Unabomber. They obviously spent too much time alone and not enough time taking big bites out of life.
Instead of writing books, they went nuts, and you don't want to end up like they did.
For one thing, it's hard to write in prison when Bubba is slamming his dick up your puckered ass. For another...well we won't get into that right now.
Currently I'm suffering from writers block; that's why I'm writing this. And you know something ? This is a lot of fun. Write about something that is on your mind, if nothing else it provides typing practice and could lead to something worthwhile. Just while writing this it occurs to me how much just sitting on the front porch with my cat means to me. The chirp of crickets and cicadas, the warmth of the cat as I stroke his luxuriant fur in idle patterns, even the flashing of the cop cars lights as they walk up the sidewalk to take me away....okay, the last part is bullshit, but the small things matter.
And in those quiet moments, ideas lay themselves at your feet like offerings from an ancient worshipper. Ideas like: The homeless person that talks to himself...is anyone listening ? Is it aliens or someone else ? Maybe when the crickets chirp it's really a code for something. Is my cat smarter than me ? Probably. Let's face it, he's not thinking about anything but the sensuous feel of being petted.
So the key is to relax and do something else, but be open to the influx of ideas when they arrive. Don't force yourself to sit down and wrack your brain about what you have to write tonight. And if you're absolutely out of ideas, try writing about your childhood or your father. Memories contain oodles of ideas. Just ask Ray Bradbury or Harlan Ellison about that. If you can pry them away from the keyboard. Ellison will tell you to fuck off and continue writing, whereas Bradbury will merely go, hmmm ?‚ like someone lost in a world of his own.
So get lost...in your own world. As for me, I'm going to imagine sitting on my porch, eating some roasted corn as the cat pesters me for a lick of butter. And I have to mind I don't miss the fourth of July fireworks in an hour, even if the reality is that it's February and there's a foot of snow on the ground. Imagination and memory are your best friends, even if sometimes you can't find them on your own. Rest assured they will find you. Now, get lost, I have stories to write and things to imagine.
