Today is the first day in five weeks I've written anything new. Yes, we're talking huge SOMETHING going on in my life. I've given this a lot of thought and that SOMETHING is not writer's block, since the very definition of writer's block is the inability to write, no matter how hard one tries at it.
I have not been trying.
I have, in fact, been studiously avoiding my PC at all costs. I haven't been answering emails, for example, to the tune of a thousand emails in my box unread. I haven't gone to chats, updated my website, or sent out my newsletter. In fact, I've done just about everything in my power to avoid my computer, since getting close to it might lead to actually attempting to write and that was something I just could not do.
Why? I don't know. It's true that I've had pretty significant issues in my personal life. My grandfather died, for example, and I told you I hurt my back. I've received a large amount of rejections recently. But my usual MO is to work through all this stuff by working. Not this time, it appears.
A while back, I'd pulled down Lawrence Block's writing book TELLING LIES FOR FUN AND PROFIT from my bookshelf and made it all the way to the living room before abandoning it unread. It's old, from back in the 80's, and my mother-in-law gave it to me for Christmas two years ago. Since it was away from my PC, I picked it up last week.
When I opened it, Lawrence himself had written "Leigh - Go For It! - Lawrence Block" on the front page --- I had no idea that my MIL had it signed by the author. None at all. "Yeah," I thought bitterly. "I've really been going for it, all right." I flipped to the article on rejection and read it, looking for inspiration - looking for anything at all, actually, since I've been feeling lately like a cocaine addict right before she hits bottom. It was the usual blather about hanging in there and blah blah. But he's pretty funny, so I kept reading along. At the end of last week, I got to his article called TIME OUT.
"Consider if you will the pattern I have established for myself over the past several weeks. Each morning, as is my custom, I awaken around seven. I get out of bed, see my shadow, and dive back into bed, where I contrive to spend the ensuing four hours with the covers pulled over my head..." He goes on to basically describe my life for the last month.
Holy shit! I thought, reading on. I'm not the only one suffering from this non-writer's block SOMETHING or other. He suggests accepting this as part of the process some writers experience. He suggests not "letting everything else go to hell along with the writing." Which is exactly what I've been doing.
But what spoke to me the most and helped stop the skipping record I've been living lately is this quote -- "One thing I've found to be true for most of us is that, whether we enjoy writing or not, one thing we enjoy a good deal less is Not Writing. Unfortunately, it seems to be true that Not Writing is occasionally a part of the writing process. And it's a lot more tolerable, and probably better all around, if I can learn to trust the process."
Today I wrote new pages for the first time in a month. On one hand, that's pretty sad that I missed those days and will never have them back. But I feel better for writing, since Not Writing pretty much sucks. And I found I'd forgotten the thrill of a written page, the pure high I get when I build a scene from my mind, the glow of a man's wet skin in the candlelight, the burn of magic swirling inside my heroine, the tension between two people who will one day learn to love each other. I'd forgotten and the mere act of writing brought all that tumbling back to me. Thank God.
