The Benefits of Writer’s Block
If you’ve been a writer for any length of time, you’ve heard the advice, “Write every day! Even if it’s garbage, at least you’ve written!”
Nah. Doesn’t work for me. And I know I can’t be the only one who used to feel absolutely beaten down by this mania for doing the daily.
Here’s why I’ve learned to smile and nod and then do what I want anyway. I discovered that when I write just to write — that when I WRITE “garbage” just to fill the day’s quota — I FEEL like garbage. Add to that the avoidance of my “obligation” writing. I knew it wasn’t good when I wrote it. Why in the world would I want to go back to it? Why polish the proverbial pooh? (Say THAT five times fast!)
When I sat down at my computer today, I’d planned to blog on a subject that I KNOW is important. I have the skeleton already written and saved as a draft, but when I opened the draft, I knew immediately that it wasn’t going to happen. Following the advice of the myriad of authors who have gone before, I should have written SOMETHING, just to say, “Hey! I wrote today!” But the subject matter is too serious and requires too much thought for me to write an article out of habit, obligation, or personal discipline.
Not that I didn’t try. I really did. Sometimes, it just takes a little time to warm up, but nothing was coming together. Eventually, I closed everything down, poured a cup of strong black tea, made a bowl full of apples and grapes, and ran a bath. As I was making my preparations for an evening of relaxing, I thought, this is what I need to write about. As important as the subject matter in the drafted article was, THIS is important too — in a very different way.
Writers, especially indie writers, have taken on a Herculean task. Not only do we write and publish books about subjects most agents and publishers avoid, but we also have to create support teams out of thin air, find a way to pay our editors and cover designers, and learn how to market our books. Much of the time, we work alone. But, even when we get away from our keyboards or sales reports, we’re thinking about our characters, our plots, and our readers. But we can’t always get the words to the computer screen or journal pages.
The truth is, we need breaks. We need the blocks. It’s time to normalize stepping back to let our minds recharge while staying open to random inspiration. Inspiration that may prompt the blocked writer to leave her tub, snack, and tea and instead rush to her laptop and put her ideas into words.
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