It is a malady most terrible. The heart that does not tremor before sword or lance is rendered helpless before it. The most courageous must find themselves daunted as they look upon the vast wasteland struck dumb before the hand of this monstrosity. For by its fearsome hand, the very words are stilled from the pen. As is the pen mightier than the sword, so is the malady that stills the pen a more all consuming and petrifying one than that that stills the sword. The very name chills the valiant hearts of so many gallant writers across the world; such is the awful and horrifying thing that is called writers block.
Writers block, procrastination, intimidation, which is it that I am struggling with?
I really can’t tell you at the present time. Perhaps it is a mixture of all three. I think however that it is of the most, intimidation. You see, I have reached a certain point in quite a few of my stories, where it has become intimidating for me. I want to proceed. I know how I want to proceed. I open the word document and start scrolling down through all of the pages and pages of paragraphs saved under a certain title and I just don’t know where to begin. It doesn’t help that when it reaches that point it takes rather a long time to scroll through it all, and to top it all my computer freezes when I am scrolling through more than twenty pages in any one file.
Intimidation then strikes procrastination. I fiddle a little bit with a few sentences but leave any in depth editing and continuation for later…and we all know how that ends, don’t we? Later never comes, it’s always just a day away. Like “tomorrow” we can never really arrive at “later” it eludes us and escapes with each day that passes. A winsome butterfly that we are chasing but it slips through our grasps and we see it calling us, still just a day away, always just one more day and we will be in tomorrow, but when tomorrow comes it transforms into today, and a new tomorrow is shining for us to see.
With intimidation and procrastination comes writers block. You don’t want to proceed on anything new without first proceeding on the old. So we are at a standstill.
But enough, enough, I say!
Enough intimidation! Enough procrastination! Enough of this writers block!
What I need is to start writing consistently, and the only way to write consistently is to get into the habit. The habit of writing a little bit every day, which is a habit I want to be in. So my new goal (goals are very good things, you know) is to write a little bit every day- I think I shall start with my goal being a thousand, maybe two thousand words a day. That is really a quite easy amount, but the difficulty is not the amount but in the consistency.
So that is my new goal, to bring about an end to this dreaded disease, this writers block!
End of my proud little speech.
(Small print)
Wanted: a cure for writers block. Contact our agency with any new found information concerning this malady. Tips, suggestions, helpful advice would be welcomed with opened arms. Also accepting; basic rambling on dealings with this disease, sympathy, pats on the head, chocolate and coffee. Any addition would be welcome. We are open Monday through Sunday, twenty-four hours a day. All responses will of course be accepted through our commenting system. Thank you, and have a very nice day. *cuts off with a burst of loud static*
2 comments:
Oh, I know just how you feel! I've just overcome some writer's block myself. I think the spring-like weather we've had lately helped.
Sometimes what I do is go over some really old stories I've never finished - it just helps to have some variety. Or maybe you could print your stories - I hate editing on a computer screen.
I think the worst thing to do is to wallow in your writer's block. I always find that the harder I strive against it, the worse it gets. Do something else - don't let it get the best of you!
Good luck!
*grins* yes, I do find digging out old stories very helpful, as well as it's just so much fun to do so! You are either left laughing at something you wrote so very long ago or something, those rare times, you find a forgotten treasure. Funny watching how your writing style changes with years...
You have very good suggestions *nods* I love how everyone knows what your talking about when you talk about struggles with writing. It sometimes helps just writing about it, doesn't it?
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