Writers often encounter dry spells, blockages, or what seems a loss of imagination. We most often call this writer’s block.
I actually think that writer’s block is a catch-all term for times when we don’t know what to write. Not knowing what to write can occur in many phases of our writing, the outset of story or novel, the middle of the novel, even the end.
We don’t know how to bring it all to a close.
Constantly reading is a fundamental way to keep the creative juices churning to avoid writer’s block. Reading words penned by others also provides a road map, a sort of here-and-now guide that can lead us out of overwhelm by the blank page.
What better way to stimulate ourselves to fill a blank screen than to read a page of words crafted by another?
Yet when we are stuck at the outset of a project, or say we have finished one novel and having sent it off we now beat about for the inklings of a new project, there is in addition to reading stories, the age-old opportunity to go inside ourselves and dig around for treasures hidden within our own consciousness.
All writing is autobiographical. That is not to say that everything we write is story of ourselves. Rather all that we write is rooted in our experience.
For this reason when lost at the beginning of a project and searching for a place to start, a spark, a tweak, we would do well to consider our life, the things that hurt. Perhaps it hurts to have nothing to write.
This loss of words, what does it remind us of–a childhood disappointment, a tragedy yet explored.
Perhaps our frustration in not know what to say brings us back to the very thing that initiated us toward seeking comfort in words, both those we read and the ones we write.
The value of dry spells, if there is one, is the provocation to evaluate and re-evaluate the importance of words.
Times when we lack the energy or purpose to write allow us to identify and explore what words mean to us–why we write, why we are compelled to practice, not perform, this art of rendering meaning of the human experience in a manner that is so common and inherent to life and living–through words.
How often do you have writer’s block?
How do you remedy it?
Do your dry spells in writing emanate from the same source or lack of?