In today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* Writer’s Block Strikes Me Down
No “Of Interest” or “Numbers” today
Quote of the Day
“Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist; but by ascending a little you may often look over it altogether.” Arthur Helps
Writer’s Block Strikes Me Down
This is a guest post by Dan Baldwin. Enjoy.
I’ve posted many, many, many times that I do not believe in writer’s block. I’ve said, often, that the phenomenon represents something else entirely and that the something else varies from writer to writer:
- Fear of completion
- Fear of not completing
- Fear of success
- Fear of failure
- Fear of what (somebody) might say
- Fear of what (somebody) might think
- Laziness
- Taking pride in a never-ending “work in progress”
My theme, however, was that the damn thing just doesn’t exist. Until the damn thing hit me. I’m currently in that dead spot ghostwriters encounter when they send out a draft to a client and must wait for a response before writing again. I’m between three of those rocky hard places.
Normally, I’d turn to my real work in progress, a novel. But I’ve just published The Hog Ranch, so I’m in that dead space between novels – blocked and waiting for inspiration for the next novel.
What the hell, I thought. When I realized I was suffering from writer’s block and while waiting for inspiration to hit, I wrote a short story in the Twilight Zone vein. No inspiration was coming, so I wrote five more. Then I took an old story from way back on the mental shelf and turned it into a novella. Walking Gall plus Short Stories will be published later this month.
I still haven’t come up with the inspiration for that novel, so it looks like I’ll have to ride out this bout of writer’s block for a while. In the meantime, I do have this idea for a poem….
Of Interest
Recommended Reading: Crazy English by Richard Lederer
Recommended Online: https://www.desertfoothillsbookfestival.com