Blockage and Writing
Some people don’t have a book in them.
They think they do but honestly, they probably don’t. And that’s ok.
Writing is something that I notice people think is easy and that they’ll one day “sit down and write a book” – which never comes.
Some folks have genuine reasons to as why they can’t put pen to paper: real life issues such as working a blue collar job (anything above blue collar as a deviation from writing is just a nattering, pointless excuse), having a disorder that wreaks havoc, raising a baby. This is not about them.
Some people who want to write have major blocks inside themselves, like the fear of failing (or, alternatively, the fear of succeeding and somehow failing upward). There’s no amount of how-to writing books, workshops or writing groups someone can have to fix those. The solution that works best in that situation is the one many can find difficult to do: therapy. Talk therapy.
Therapy helps you un-screw your brain. It’s not always cheap or accessible – there are, however, some places, like Loveland, which helps Black girls and women afford therapy for free up. There’s one for Black men and boys as well but that currently escapes me. I recommend looking at Meg Thee Stallion’s Traumazine mental health site and for details. I think there are other resources for other groups of color but not off the top of my head. I’ve used Loveland, I super appreciate them when I couldn’t afford therapy for my small laundry list of disorders, especially since I need specialized treatment for my trauma disorders.
I already have talked about how I go in very deep with dark emotions in my works, therapy helps me do that – and not wind up on suicide watch every time I finish a book … or before I even start a book and things like that. I’m a big fan of “go deep” because I think that’s where the best emotions for moving storytelling but not if you’re going to self harm somehow as a result of it or it breaks you. You can muse about Heath Ledger and Chester Bennington but one thing those two have in stark common is that they’re dead. There’s a new Joker. Linkin Park got a new singer. Nothing else is coming out of those two for the rest of time, plain and simple. And it isn’t because they didn’t try therapy, I personally know Chester tried very, very hard. But it can be tough going deep because occasionally you still go off the deep end. However, still try therapy. It’s better than frying your brain and/or liver with chemicals that are eventually going to rob you of your skillset anyways.
At least, with the help of therapy, you can get some of those blocks out of the way. Hopefully even write for fun. And I mean professional therapy, not trauma dumping on people in your writing group and dragging them down the boulevard of your broken dreams they definitely didn’t ask for.
Also, it is important to remember that you don’t have to pump out a book to be a writer. There are many different kind of writers, from blog writing (what you’re reading) to book writing.
I regularly wonder why folks will say “oh, I always wanted to write a book” but never do, esp. when you tell them you’re a writer. And will vomit to you all their ideas – or, worse, tell you what you need to write next.
They’re kind of stuck in the fantasy of being a writer; the mint juleps, the tweed elbow patches, saying smart sh#t straight off the cuff that makes others think you’re so witty and intellectual, particularly at fancy soirees you’re not at all in the right social circles to attend or know where they are.
They marvel a little too hard at the fact they’re meeting a writer – not a writer whose books they have read – just a self-proclaimed writer. As if they’re talking to a deity and not a regular person that worked on a skill for a pretty long time.
(It gets worse for me because I write with a fountain pen and that pings the lofty stereotype in their head so they’re even more insufferable. And a good number of them start talking like they’re in In Living Color’s “Booked on Phonics” kit, which is a super funny skit I always loved – but not when it plays out in front of you in real life.
In short: It sucks)
Therapy isn’t a fix for them, they need a reality check. It’s about the perceived stodginess of writing, like only people who are better than other people can do it or something ridiculous.
I super recommend this reading from Kris Rusch from her “How Writer’s Fail” series, Part 11: They Want To. It’s super apt and on the money. She brings up therapy and other super helpful musings. Actually, I recommend reading the entire series, it’s very good. It may not be therapy but it does help put things into perspective, which some need, and is a reality check for those who definitely need it.
Writing is a skill. Plain and simple. You have to work at it to get it. What constitutes as “good writing” may differ from person to person. Most are not reading Proust and Tolstoy for joy – and people already don’t want to read because they have had to read works like Proust and Tolstoy when they were in school. Many classics seem like utter crap when you’re not the intersection of Ivy Leagues and Trump’s voting bloc. You don’t have to stomach boring Shakespeare or dull Hemingway – nor do you have to write like a long dead White guy (who couldn’t write women or people of color for sh#t, only White straight men) – to be a writer.
If you can tell a lie, you can write a story. And people lie more than they like to think. All a story is, is some fabrication. And not being myopic. Not everyone thinks the same and not everyone who thinks different is Wrong
. If you can’t think broadly, you’re probably going to always have some very stifling, boring work. Or it’s going to directly mimic the low denominator drivel you already see in day-to-day media: predictable plots, tropes that should have died back in the 1800s, characters that are barely characters but more like inflated 1 dimensional figurines that you can’t tell from the other 1 dimensional figurines. It’s all head work. And people do it more than they think they do.
Another thing is handing your work for hyper-critical nit-picky people to read – don’t do that. They’re not sitting with reams of awards so what makes their opinion so important? Even if they did, who cares? People can lose awards fast nowadays. Plus, awards just mean they’re popular in that circle, not in general. Harry Potter only got I think one Nebula award (only book four, I think), there are other books that have several Nebulas … and none of them are the same juggernaut of success to Harry Potter. Plus, the average person has never heard of a Nebula award, it isn’t the Grammys. But they have heard of Hogwarts. And it took about 14 publishers to pass on it all the same before someone decided to pick it up and give the boy wizard an honest try.
Do you think these 14 publishers would have passed on Harry Potter now if they could rewind time. No. And these are publishers, they always want to procure the next best thing because it’s great for their pockets, why do you think some person you personally know, be it a caustic relative or a mean-spirited “friend”, would be better at determining your work? Have them write a book first if you think their word is so meaningful. Especially if they think their word is meaningful.
No one sees my work until it’s at least one draft past being typed up from written word. And even when they see it, I tell them it’s mainly for vibe check reasons, to make sure it isn’t word vomit. I don’t want developmental editing, I just Made A Thing and want others to see it. If I like the story, then the story is fine, I’m just doing show and tell because I’m glad it’s finally on the page. I have to be the primary one who likes the story first because guess what? I’m the one who has to sit there and write 200+ pages of it. Bare minimum, I better like it or it simply isn’t getting written. There’s no ink pretty enough in the world to make me sit through penning bs malarky I couldn’t care less about. That’s a waste of ink, for one. Ferris Wheel Press is expensive, Dominant Industry has small bottles and Monarca is hard to get. If I wanted to write stories I hated, what’s the point of creative writing? Not every story is for everyone. It doesn’t have to be a best-seller, just a good story. Oh, and read this about bestseller lists if you think it’s an end-all, be-all thing.
For me I just want to write a good story that can evoke some kind of feeling. I remember John Waters said that for him, an award isn’t a trophy like an Oscar or Emmy. A true award for him is seeing someone get up in the theatre and vomit in the aisle. That’s how he knew he truly affected someone. He’s also from my city, and I, too, would rather at least have someone say “your work deeply disturbed me, wtf is wrong with you?” than a shiny award. At least I know it’s real, y’know?
Writing is an art but, like any art, it takes work in doing. But not everyone can or does want to learn that art. Maybe they just want to seem smart (because they don’t think they are), successful (because they don’t think they are), interesting (because they don’t think they are), so on and so forth.
