Writer's Block

If nothing else, sitting in front of a computer monitor staring blankly at the keyboard for several hours at a time is an exercise in self discipline. The pain of creation, already noted, is keen. There were times when it was all I could do to stay seated and struggle with what to write. Some times I gave up and went for a long walk or something, anything, to get away for a while. Some people might be inclined to call this type of experience writer's block, but it's not. In fact, it's rare to hear anyone even mention writer's block these days thanks to the word processor.

It was a different matter in the age of the typewriter. It's been said that writer's block even then really had little to do with written word per se, but had everything to do with having to get it right before hitting a single key. It was a form of mental paralysis because the writer did not have a completely formed sentence(s) in mind to type. I am only a mediocre typist, and can well imagine the agony that would result when you realized that the last two or three sentences were wrong and had to go. There was no erasing those sentences by hitting the backspace key. No, it was either rip out the sheet of paper and start over or pick up the eraser. It's understandable that most manuscripts were first written longhand. At least you could scratch things out and make notes in the margins. So, basically, writer's block is largely an historical footnote.

I realize that some, perhaps many, people might disagree. And I think it possible that at some points in a manuscript, a conflict of ideas, emotions, or intent might bring the creative process to a screeching halt. However, those are issues of a specific nature that can be dealt with as one does with any conflict in life. Depending, of course, on how the individual happens to deal with conflict!

No, I think what most people these days call writer's block is directly related to impatience. Certainly, when I first started writing impatience was a constant companion. Only now, some years later, have I gained a real appreciation for the process of creation that precedes the first keystroke, and for the concept of patience. They are related, immense topics cloaked in uncertainty, obscurity, and frank darkness; in aspects of thought itself that are not accessible to the consciously directed mind. If not definitive justice, at least I will do what justice I might to these topics in this post and posts to follow as they might. Even while writing this, my mind is balking at the task of finding the right words. Of course they aren't there until they are.

What I eventually came to realize years after starting to write, was that the process of creation exists in a part of my mind that I have no direct access to or dominion over. Creation serves at its pleasure and leisure. Upon placing a request, more often than not I receive an answer. Sooner or later. Enter patience. And yet, sometimes wonderful ideas outside experience or imagination flow without interruption for hours or days at a time. Okay, I've already talked a bit about this. During those wonderful periods, the conscious Me serves only as a mediator between the source of creation and the words that appear on the monitor as I type. In the best of times, then, one departs sensory reality to live in that part of the mind where creativity exists. You go to it, it does not come to you. And so I went to live on Aketti and breathed the purest of air high in the Bora Mountains. There I met giants of old and creatures of renown.

Whimsical? No. You have to experience it. As I said, though, I'll come back to this topic off and on. Patience is the key to revelation, and patience is the child of humility.