Block Magic
Here’s a rave of mine that recently ran in Vic Writer - the monthly magazine issued by the local Scribe Council, all about the myths and remedies of Writers Block:
Editors at Vic Writer asked me to kick around the idea of Writer’s Block for the issue in your hand. Ensure, they said I tackle two questions. A) Does writer’s block exist? And B) if so, How do I dodge it? Sure, I said. Like popping bubble wrap – too easy. Deadline was March 9.
A week went by. I happened to be busy. Neck-deep in writing a feature story on amnesia, as well as the day-to-day grind of grocery hunting, chatrooming and setting a moral example to my children, I found my time to address writer’s block on the finite side.
Okay, so I procrastinated. March 5 turned into 6 and I hadn’t left the starter’s blocks. But what was the problem? My answer to Question A was a resounding No, this block-thing was all but a myth, so in a sense the rebuff was already written. Half-written. Written in my head at least. Alright, so I hadn’t lifted a finger. Maybe, just maybe, I was blocked.
Of course that was the obvious gag. Drop an email on D-Day and tell Vic Writer my Muse was on extended smoko. I’d be lying if I said the block hasn’t darkened my path before: you start a story, or worse, a novel. You race off the first few pages, etch the characters, sidle in the complication and all too soon that smell of brake fluid laces the air. You’ve stopped. The hero stammers. The scenery collapses. The so-called narrative flow has been hit by Grade 4 Water Restrictions.
Remember the amnesia story? That’s a 2000-worder for Sunday Life magazine, a trip into the brain’s mystic lobes. Some days I wish the job would disappear – the research and neural data can be wearing – but the topic is fascinating, and the story is getting written. Why? Because a second party awaits its delivery, the same party with a chequebook.
In Rear Window, the Hitchcock thriller, Gregory Peck spies on his neighbours, including a writer living in the opposite block (of apartments). At one stage an acquaintance asks this literary guy, Where do you get your inspiration to write? The writer replies, ‘From the landlady, every Wednesday.’
I reckon Hitchcock is onto something. Rather than paint money as a block’s remedy, let’s invoke the word, profession. To work best, consider writing as a job you’re trained to tackle, and complete. Versus a craft, which is what Aunt Edie used to do with those pipe-cleaners.
Ever heard of Pilot’s Block? Or Aromatherapist’s Block? No, the term is an indulgence. Are we writers or hothouse flowers? Even though I suffer blocks – all the more in whimsical and personal modes – I recognize the syndrome as a first cousin of hypochondria.
So, assuming blocks are real in a bugaboo sort of way, how can we ignore them? Best way to wriggle free is to anguish over a poorly written start, rather than the virgin page. Brilliant works exist in the head, but unless you try to translate the masterpieces into curly black stuff on paper, they won’t be read. That second party – your reader – won’t get a look in.
Writer, unblock thyself. An Ivy League tutor might dole out all manner of anti-block tips, like finishing a day’s writing mid-sentence, or keeping several projects on the stove, or using contest deadlines as a pistol to the temple, but I’m not going to mention them. Seems the more we dignify the phrase – Writer’s Block – the deeper its access to our psyches.
Cash flow or not, treat your calling as professional, and honour the unwritten contract with your reader. Tell the Muse you’re jumping right in, ready or not. In short, prove you’re a writer, and write.