Writer’s block is a myth. It is hard to sit and look at yourself in the reflection of your screen knowing you haven’t got anything in the locker. The material comes to you late at night whilst you stare into the ceiling. After you lose consciousness, shortly gaining it again. The responsibilities of the next day rob you of what you had only hours ago. When idle at the desk avoiding the responsibilities you loathe, sat wishing on the end of the day. More ideas flow in the countdown, the sounds between the ticking of a clock in your own mind wishing that you were sat down doing something better than this. Then when you’re all beaten for the day, the weight of benign existence overcomes any of those previous feelings to sit down and put the words down into something more than just thoughts in your head. Then when you get those moments of freedom, you’re opting between dulling yourself with the consumption of brain rotting social media, new television shows or alternative forms of media. Browsing the news of the day. Drinking down the discontent at the pub. Finding meaning in your existence by filling up the endless Friday nights on your calendar with plans too see people, as that is all that matters. When you’re not tied into the lifecycle, sometimes you need to take the moment to strip down to nothing. Pulling the sheets up to your chin in the cool bed and just stretching out in the peace of a low lighting environment. Even if it’s just a moment, away from all the noise that endlessly consumes you. Content with the acceptance of not trying to take any leaps forwards.
When you stop thinking, that is when you are ready to commit, getting off what you want for every minute that passes. Another genius idea springs to mind. The groundbreaking stuff. You need to grasp this when you’re drowning in ordinary madness. Then after a little bit of writing back and forth, you realise what you have in concocted in front of you is a disorganised mess. You need to leave that shit sometimes and come back to it when you feel ready. Nothing needs to be perfect. Grow comfortable with building the one man sandcastle, confronted with the tide coming in against it. It doesn’t matter what you produce, it will wash away into nothing. Someone else will come and build upon the graveyard of your greatest work with the same grains of sand for the better, or worse it just depends.
You will get the sickening reality check when you view the work in front of you, and know it has to be tossed immediately. It’s not even worth the kilobytes of storage. Though the worst is to open what you intended to start writing on and shying away from it entirely out of an indecision. As then you won’t feel the necessary disappointment with yourself from missing gold but getting a participation medal. The best you get from that is just the guilt and shame of not even trying. Though it doesn’t always have to go these ways, every now and then, you get whatever you call this. Satisfied.
I detest the notion that what stops this from happening though is what you call writers block. There isn’t anything being stopped from coming to my mind. Instead, what replaces the curiosities I indulge in are thoughts of inadequacies. The imaginative state of mind, for me, doesn’t ever turn off. The frequencies just get changed by the second, minute, or hour. The pipes upstairs aren’t blocked; they’re flooding the entire fucking place with the piss and shit of the inner soul that doesn’t believe in myself to be good enough to put some words on a page. I can feel the guy upstairs’ turning the dial, putting the pressure gauge up to the max. Fear. When you commit yourself in any capacity, its human to be filled with the stuff. You fear what the people you walk past think of you. You fear the person who loves you most in this world will be disappointed by you. You fear never being loved by anyone at all. Where the fear rests gently within the soul, you either fear those closest to you, or those the furthest away. You fear, you. The consequences of trying. You fear proving the wrong version of you to be correct.
When I write it’s an endless road with signage either side, with all of the thoughts that has been, and will continue indefinitely to be generated. I wish there was someone to start blocking the traffic up, forced to stop and witness the surroundings. I don’t get the luxury often, instead I suffer with the nonsense. When I picture writers block, to me it feels like a spider. Harmless to the vast majority, catching the insects that fall for the trick in its web. Whereas I’m stuck with the mosquito, universally hated, irritating to all, which also runs the risk of killing me if it tries hard enough. When you’re trying to express yourself, and you get writers’ block. You should be thankful. It’s hard enough trying to make sense out of everything but try attempting this with the self sabotaging intruder instead. The blood sucker, killing the dream. Relegating people to the ordinary. Though there cannot be excuses, something that is better said to me than you.
