Writer's Block
Written on May 29, 2009
Dear Constant Readers,
I just finished watching a movie tonight and decided to work on some writing. My old roommate and one of my best friends Charles and I both enjoy writing creatively and decided to do some story exchanges, but the truth is, I’ve sometimes wondered if I have it in me to write creatively. A few months back I wrote a few pages of a story and started working on a second draft, but have since moved away from it and now am having a hard time getting back into it. That actually often happens to me. When I write a story it might take me weeks or months to write, but I need to dedicate myself to that story and no other story or I lose my pace. I may have to log this into the folder of other story ideas and beginnings I never finished.
I believe that for many good writers writing is probably challenging. For me, I don’t even know how to come up with ideas sometimes. I have very visual ideas from time to time, or at least visual enough for me to get a feeling I want to replicate. I think this is why I like to draw and why, this past week, I have dusted off my barely used water-color paints and a sketch tablet I bought back in training and have started to paint. So far I’ve done a few pictures, but only completed one of them. When I write and when I draw, it is an evolutionary process: I often only have a general gist of what is happening, but I go with it.
I try too hard perhaps, when I write. I think this is one thing that scares me from writing professionally. I would have to write on a regular basis, and I don’t know what kind of things I could say when I’m pressured to say something. I believe it was Jules Verne who signed a contract to produce a novel a year or some rate like that. And then of course there are countless other writers and novelists who do this for a living. I admire their stamina and wonder how they deal with writer’s block.
But then, I ask myself, do I love it enough? Is my heart in it? Do I like writing, or the idea of it? I think both. I think I do love it, but not perhaps with a passion I would need to not go hungry with it. (Of course hunger is a powerful motivator.) It’s this thing of discipline I mentioned in my last blog entry but didn’t really cover the way I had wanted to.
But writing fascinates me, and I do want to continue with it. It’s just that when I sit down to say something (usually in fiction) I feel stuck. I feel blank and rather uninspired, but maybe just inspired enough to feel frustrated, like there’s a murky fog in my head obscuring an otherwise useable collection of words and grammar and some plot to tinker with. In fiction writing courses in college we occasionally talked about writer’s block, but I don’t really anything constructive out of those conversations. I do remember being able to write better under a deadline, which I oddly contradicts what I said about writing as a career. I enjoyed the race I had to come up with a story, even if it wasn’t super great, it was something, an exercise to get creative stuffs firing away. Like with my drawing and new hobby painting, I applaud writing “crappy work” because it actually is not crappy work in terms of an exercise of the mind. It might be drudgework or pale in comparison with something yet to come, but gets the ball rolling, and like other practice, lessons can be learned from it.
My APCD of my program Water and Sanitation (WatSan, for short if I haven’t mentioned it, but I probably have), Jorge, came to visit me at site yesterday. He only stayed briefly and then moved onto to Patrick’s site in the afternoon. I don’t blame him for not staying longer due to his traveling itinerary, but I was disappointed to see him so briefly. This feeling surprised me a bit since initially I was very nervous he would come to site and decide I wasn’t doing enough, something that has caused me feelings of insecurity and guilt. But taking a risk, I told him about some of the things I’ve done, such as all the books I’ve been reading, some of the games I’ve played on the computer, and now I am painting, in addition to a list I had drawn up of potential projects I think would be helpful to the community and am interested in doing. Instead of being upset, Jorge just smiled and talked about how some of his volunteers constantly need to be busy with something, whereas I am a person who is content to spend time in a more quiet fashion, reading and so forth. He said that some of the other volunteers, were they in my site, would go crazy here, but that I am actually doing quite well because of my personality which allows me to spend more time alone. This was a relief and made me feel more confident in my own person as well as in my work here.
Often I’ve learned this lesson in life. It just keeps being repeated: Usually there is no reason at all to worry about something. I just hope I can keep this in mind now. My first near quarter century of life was filled with enough worry to last however much time God has given me.
Well, it’s nearly tomorrow now, so I think I’ll end this entry here.
Addendum: Patrick said that he wanted to make an appearance in my blog. So here’s something. I loaned him twenty soles so he could buy a phone card. He now insists that in addition to that money, *I should be the one paying him back* in twenty soles’ worth of chocolate candy. I think the starch in his food is getting to his mind.
Tristan
Dear Constant Readers,
I just finished watching a movie tonight and decided to work on some writing. My old roommate and one of my best friends Charles and I both enjoy writing creatively and decided to do some story exchanges, but the truth is, I’ve sometimes wondered if I have it in me to write creatively. A few months back I wrote a few pages of a story and started working on a second draft, but have since moved away from it and now am having a hard time getting back into it. That actually often happens to me. When I write a story it might take me weeks or months to write, but I need to dedicate myself to that story and no other story or I lose my pace. I may have to log this into the folder of other story ideas and beginnings I never finished.
I believe that for many good writers writing is probably challenging. For me, I don’t even know how to come up with ideas sometimes. I have very visual ideas from time to time, or at least visual enough for me to get a feeling I want to replicate. I think this is why I like to draw and why, this past week, I have dusted off my barely used water-color paints and a sketch tablet I bought back in training and have started to paint. So far I’ve done a few pictures, but only completed one of them. When I write and when I draw, it is an evolutionary process: I often only have a general gist of what is happening, but I go with it.
I try too hard perhaps, when I write. I think this is one thing that scares me from writing professionally. I would have to write on a regular basis, and I don’t know what kind of things I could say when I’m pressured to say something. I believe it was Jules Verne who signed a contract to produce a novel a year or some rate like that. And then of course there are countless other writers and novelists who do this for a living. I admire their stamina and wonder how they deal with writer’s block.
But then, I ask myself, do I love it enough? Is my heart in it? Do I like writing, or the idea of it? I think both. I think I do love it, but not perhaps with a passion I would need to not go hungry with it. (Of course hunger is a powerful motivator.) It’s this thing of discipline I mentioned in my last blog entry but didn’t really cover the way I had wanted to.
But writing fascinates me, and I do want to continue with it. It’s just that when I sit down to say something (usually in fiction) I feel stuck. I feel blank and rather uninspired, but maybe just inspired enough to feel frustrated, like there’s a murky fog in my head obscuring an otherwise useable collection of words and grammar and some plot to tinker with. In fiction writing courses in college we occasionally talked about writer’s block, but I don’t really anything constructive out of those conversations. I do remember being able to write better under a deadline, which I oddly contradicts what I said about writing as a career. I enjoyed the race I had to come up with a story, even if it wasn’t super great, it was something, an exercise to get creative stuffs firing away. Like with my drawing and new hobby painting, I applaud writing “crappy work” because it actually is not crappy work in terms of an exercise of the mind. It might be drudgework or pale in comparison with something yet to come, but gets the ball rolling, and like other practice, lessons can be learned from it.
My APCD of my program Water and Sanitation (WatSan, for short if I haven’t mentioned it, but I probably have), Jorge, came to visit me at site yesterday. He only stayed briefly and then moved onto to Patrick’s site in the afternoon. I don’t blame him for not staying longer due to his traveling itinerary, but I was disappointed to see him so briefly. This feeling surprised me a bit since initially I was very nervous he would come to site and decide I wasn’t doing enough, something that has caused me feelings of insecurity and guilt. But taking a risk, I told him about some of the things I’ve done, such as all the books I’ve been reading, some of the games I’ve played on the computer, and now I am painting, in addition to a list I had drawn up of potential projects I think would be helpful to the community and am interested in doing. Instead of being upset, Jorge just smiled and talked about how some of his volunteers constantly need to be busy with something, whereas I am a person who is content to spend time in a more quiet fashion, reading and so forth. He said that some of the other volunteers, were they in my site, would go crazy here, but that I am actually doing quite well because of my personality which allows me to spend more time alone. This was a relief and made me feel more confident in my own person as well as in my work here.
Often I’ve learned this lesson in life. It just keeps being repeated: Usually there is no reason at all to worry about something. I just hope I can keep this in mind now. My first near quarter century of life was filled with enough worry to last however much time God has given me.
Well, it’s nearly tomorrow now, so I think I’ll end this entry here.
Addendum: Patrick said that he wanted to make an appearance in my blog. So here’s something. I loaned him twenty soles so he could buy a phone card. He now insists that in addition to that money, *I should be the one paying him back* in twenty soles’ worth of chocolate candy. I think the starch in his food is getting to his mind.
Tristan
posted by Tristan | 6:20 AM
1 Comments:
It's interesting to see what people will do with themselves during idle times, or perhaps, anytime. I highly admire your instinctive fondness of art. For example, you started painting. That's wonderful. I just imagine how many other people spend time on things that can be considered sloth-like.
Good to read you're still doing well.
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