September 10, 2009

Thursday

WRITERS BLOCK

I have been in this block for months. It's driving me, quite literally, crazy. I can't write effective poems, stories, commentaries, even my journal entries are lacking. I've tried reading novels for inspiration, other peoples work for inspiration. Looking at different types of art, and listening to music for inspiration. I sit down with my pen and my notebook, knowing exactly what I want to write, and I can't get more than a few sentences out. It's not that I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with ideas, or theories upon which to expand. It seems to be more about not being able to translate effectively the...emotion that is hidden somewhere in these things.
It's like losing your appetite; you have food in front of you, you know what you might want to eat, but when you finally bring yourself to put it in your mouth, it tastes like sand and you're no longer hungry in the slightest. It's nearly unexplainable. A person might think that it's just not having the will enough to write, or being "unsatisfied" with your own work. It's honestly not that simple. I'm sure other people would agree that the things I force out of myself while in this block of unwritten, are truly not good. Not that I've worked up the nerve to show them.
It was better, three or so years ago, when I would write something, I could go for hours, listening to any music really loudly, blocking out everything else and the words just spilling out of me. Someone would need my attention, and I would jump a few inches up in the air because I honestly did not see them standing at my shoulder. When I was finally done with those pages, I would read it over, revise, check grammar and spelling, look things up if necessary, and ask my Mom or my brother to come read it, and give me feedback. For the most part it was positive, nothing too drastic, it seemed, needed revision.
Nowadays, not only am I more self-conscious of my writing, but I take things said about it more personally. I also think that the quality, while maybe it didn't go down, certainly didn't go up a significant amount. I don't want to be at the same level of writing that I was two years ago. The majority of my English teachers loved me, because my writing was good. But I was made to write the short story, and the two essays; and I'm the type of person who wants to do their best whenever possible in that type of situation.
I tend to go into that kind of trance I mentioned earlier when I'm ranting to my friends. Through instant messaging mostly, I just zone out until I'm done making my point, or until I run out of steam. Maybe I need to work on channeling the energy in those rants toward something more creative.

We'll see how that works out, shall we?

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