Have you ever been expected to write something during your life, perhaps in elementary, high school or college, or if you’re like me, for work, and the ideas just wouldn’t come to you?
No matter how hard you tried, how long you brainstormed, how much you wracked your mind trying to find a topic, not a one would materialize?
I’m talking, obviously, about writer’s block.
Wikipedia defines this hideous phenomenon as “a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work, or experiences a creative slowdown. The condition ranges in difficulty from coming up with original ideas to being unable to produce a work for years.”
Maybe it’s never been a concern because you just ditched out on any obligations that required you to write from your own ideas. Or possibly writing has never even been expected of you.
If so, congratulations, right now I’m envious.
But those of us who’ve experienced this dreaded barricade, especially when a deadline is looming and the gears just won’t turn, know it can be frustrating, irksome or downright infuriating.
I’m sure there must be some poets, lyricists, novelists, fellow journalists, or other such scribblers out there who can back me up on this.
You might drink coffee, or Red Bull, or both, in hopes the energy will trigger an idea or deliver some sort of clarity, hoping it doesn’t work against you and scatter your thoughts even more.
What do you do, though, when all efforts fail?
Some of you readers may have come to conclusion by now that I’m likely experiencing writer’s block as I write this, and if you have, pat yourself on the back.
You’re correct.
Why else would someone write about a lack of ideas?
If I’d thought about something even vaguely interesting this week, I could write about that, and wouldn’t be wallowing in this uncreative shame.
But instead I’m sitting here in the office at my computer station, post-brainstorming, my mind has been wracked, I’m on my fourth coffee and no interesting ideas have come to me.
This is my third column since I’ve come to Estevan and already I’m using writer’s block as a topic, which means I won’t be able to use it again if the idea well stays dry – not a good thing.
If that happens again I fear I’ll be up the Old Creek without a paddle.
(Note: the Old Creek isn’t the recognized name for this particular body of water, but I fear my bosses would frown upon me using its name proper.)
In my first two columns, I wrote about a speeding ticket and my transitional living conditions respectively, because those were the only things going on in my life at those times.
I’m going to pay off that dreaded ticket in the next couple of days and I’m more or less settled in, so I really have nothing going on that I can think of worth typing about.
I suppose I could have written about the mundane activities of my weekend - which was uninspiringly chill and relaxing - like grocery shopping and getting a haircut, but as mentioned, and as is obvious, these things are mundane.
If I’d been struck down by an SUV in the mall parking lot, or the barber had shaven half my ear off, such topics might be worth a column, but no, I made it back from the grocers in good health and, unfortunately, the barber was too professional to dismember me.
Times are tough, as they say.
In the Wikipedia article under treatment it suggests class and group discussion, journals, free writing and brainstorming as ways to deal with the lack of ideas.
As I have no class to discuss with, no time at the moment to write a journal, in a sense am currently free writing and have already tried to brainstorm a hurricane, these treatments are moot.
List making is also among the suggested cures so I’ll keep that in mind going forward, try to write down ideas as they come, and hopefully that’ll keep me from having to navigate the Old Creek with my bare hands in the future.
If you happened to have read the speeding ticket column, you’ll remember, I’m no navigator.
Providing you’ve managed to stick with me this far, I thank you, because if this piece was as painful to read as it was to write, that makes you a real trooper and you deserve my gratitude.
