A Leisurely Stroll Around the Block

I’m not talking about the block we live on (though it is kind of the block I live on); we would have taken an after-dinner walk in our neighborhood if it weren’t so damn hot outside. Eighty-nine degrees at 8:15 p.m., but–as I’m sure you’ve heard one thousand times–we live in a desert, so it’s a dry heat. It is, and I’d much rather bake to a lovely golden brown (or in my case, an angry crimson) than melt into a pile of sticky goo, as most Nevadans would with any humidity percentage north of twenty-five.

No, I’m talking about writer’s block (a thing I mentioned briefly as one of the things that sucks about writing) and friends, I have been strolling around that block for the better part of two months, and yeah, it sucks.

“How can that be?” you might have just asked yourself, maybe even out loud, as I often do when I’m actually writing and not suffering from a terrible writer’s block. “You publish a new post at least once week!”

Well, yes, that’s true, but these posts are mostly just things that are already rolling around in my head (which they do at an alarming rate). What I mean is that I have not written much fiction; in the last two months, I have bashed out around one thousand words, a total which is normally a satisfactory daily number, but over sixty days averages less than twenty words a day. The last sentence has more words than that.

The causes of writer’s block are as numerous as the way the block manifests. This block is of the “I can see it (the scene, the dialogue, whatever is trying to make its way out of my head) clearly, but when I try to write it down, the words don’t come” variety. What’s causing this particularly tight-gripped bout of the block? I wish I knew. If I knew, I would fix it in a hot second.

There is only one way I know to combat writer’s block, and that is to write. Writers know they can’t wait for inspiration. If a writer writes only when inspired, they’d rarely put a word on the page. Habit and routine are more reliable than inspiration. So, despite the writer’s block, every day I open my laptop and launch my writing software. Some days I read what I’ve already written, and wait and listen for my characters to speak, to tell me what they said to each other, and what happens next. Because in a way, I’m a medium for them. It’s their story, they’ve just trusted me to tell it. An awesome responsibility to be sure, and I just want to get it right. But first, I have to get it written. I’m hopeful my long walk around the block will end. Most of them have. Until it does, that hope–and patience–are all I have.

Go enjoy your own stroll around a block, literal or metaphorical. And do what makes you happy.