Writer’s Block

I haven’t been writing much lately. Much less than I would like, especially since I’ve been reading some great writing, including two of my favorite of John Irving’s novels: The World According to Garp and A Widow For One Year. Reading Irving’s work is both rewarding and frustrating for me. It’s rewarding because his stuff is so good, frustrating because I doubt that I will ever be able to write such beautifully rich stories.

Self-doubt aside, my mind is thinking in written terms. I should be using the occasion of revisiting these novels to write again.

But I’m not. Or, more accurately, I haven’t been.

There are two basic reasons for my lack of recent written output:

  1. To followers of my blog, it’s obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: I’ve been taking lots and lots of pictures. I like sharing them here, even though I know that there are infinitely better examples of photography out there on the internet. Posting photos online puts the same pressure to improve that uploading my recordings does. I write, record, and photograph for me, but knowing that other people will see my work acts as a kind of final nudge to refine, tweak, and refine some more.

  2. I agreed to write an article about my family’s first Mac for another site. It’s due by September 30, and, frankly, I’m kind of terrified. I have the roughest of drafts so far, but I don’t particularly like much about what I have. It’s lacking in message and cohesion, and I’m afraid that I’ll never come up with anything good. Call it a classic case of writer’s block.

I know my current avoidance of writing is ridiculous. Writing is hard, even for seasoned veterans. The only way to end up with something you like during periods of writer’s block is to keep writing, even though the only stuff you turn out feels like utter shit.

Still, I feel guilty every time I sit down at my computer. Smultron, my lightweight text editor of choice sits open on my Dock but minimized, mocking me for my lack of output.

Which is where I’m at. Utter shit. Rambling, incoherent, utter shit.

But I think it’s going to get better, and I can already tell that writing this blog post is helping, because, for the first time in weeks, I’m writing words — actual words — on my computer for public consumption. Words that link with others to form sentences. Sentences that combine with others to form paragraphs. In a word, writing.

Of what I’ve written so far for the piece that is due in about half a month, I might have to throw out everything I have so far, but I’d be okay with that. Good writing, for me, flows from a place of confidence. When it flows, it feels effortless.

I’m not there yet, but I feel it coming.