Deciding to write a blog about going through writer's block was not something I thought I'd be doing one year after starting to write professionally. I did not expect to be burned out this quickly but then again this has been quite an eventful and not to mention a fruitful year for me and my work. What was once a disjointed mess of words connected with a singular rant is now a focused, tight and sharp narrative that tells a story of something or someone and that makes me happy.
But the problem is life isn't always very consistent, sometimes you have to deal with stuff in professional and private lives that can and will affect how you write. So after staring at my screen for the last 2 hours, trying to find the motivation to write, I decided to scrap that project and write this instead.
Because I want this to be honest, from the heart. That usually means letting the heart do the writing and editing it later.
No matter how much of a passion you think it is, doing things you love for a living can and will take a toll on you without fail. I've been told extensively that there will come a point in my life where I'll understand my limits once I hit them so of course, I ignore that advice. Look where I am today, writing about not being able to write without even knowing if there are people reading this stuff or not. But I'll come back to this particular issue.
What does a writer's block feel like? Unlike the few movies its shown in, there's one very distinctive feature about writer's block that makes you want to tear your brain out of your skull.
It's painfully quiet.
It sneaks up on you when you're not looking and there you are, sitting in front of your laptop staring slack-jawed and glassy-eyed at the title you spent the last 30 minutes thinking about, not being able to write a single word. It is having all the motivation in the world to sit down and start writing but when you do actually get to the writing part, you are blank. Words you knew slip from your mind, sentences you've formed fly out the window faster than Grindelwald stealing The Elder Wand from Gergorovitch and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.
I don't know how to describe that feeling of knowing you can do it but having your body physically restrict you from writing, of having no idea what to write and the worst one: wondering why you should even bother writing. When you hit that stage, you're too far gone. It's like there are little bits of thoughts that want to jump from your mind to the screen and then onward but instead, they either refuse to leave their little hidey-holes or they never show up.
All of this while your life is seemingly normal, while you seem happy otherwise to people looking at you. Nobody really knows what you're feeling inside and that is a terrifying thought: To think how much writer's block has in common with depression.
I've been down this road before, I know what works and doesn't work, I know I'll bounce back. But it's the fact that I even have to go through it in the first place that bothers me so.
I think I have finally hit my limit. I pushed back too far and got flung far back into ground zero of mediocrity, not that I consider myself a good writer in the first place but to be even considered somewhat moderately good, I have to actually start writing. When the act of writing itself seems impossible, what recourse do I have except think of mediocrity?
There's a particular line in Max Payne 2 that I'm very fond of, "Genius of the hole," Max says in his trademark voice, "No matter how long you spend climbing out, you can fall back down in an instant."
I believe this applies here. I'm probably definitely overthinking this, but to me, writer's block is a lot like depression, because in my worst periods of depression I couldn't physically do anything at all. The solution then is to slowly recover, heal, tell yourself you're going to be okay even when you don't believe it and then actually believe it. Keep pushing forward or unplug from life, whatever your method is to heal, you should take it, but to always remember that all it takes is one mistake and you're going all the way to the bottom once again.
The Genius of the Hole, indeed.
I honestly wish this could be a better article. I can say I did my best but honestly speaking, I know I'm better than this. All it would take is one story to inspire me enough to pursue it to the ends of the earth and tell it or a good weeklong holiday where I do not have to think about work at all. Whatever the case, this is where things stand.
If you tend to read a lot of my stuff on this website, first of all, thank you for sticking with the ramblings of a man who didn't really think he'd amount to much. Secondly, I must apologise for not being regular with what I write. It has been a difficult period in my life and I'm still going through it but here's hoping I can move past this issue and bring to you stories from people you need to know about to people you want to know about.
You can be the most passionate person in the world but if you don't allow yourself some room to breathe while chasing those passions, there isn't much you can do when you finally grind to a halt. Such is the way of life. Such is the curse of productivity and the foolishness of youth: we believe ourselves to be invincible and inexhaustible in the work we love to do and then we hit a wall, we realise we cannot push on anymore.
At least, I had a medium to vent. What about you?
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