Kill the Beast — Or Become Friends
Writer's Block is a serious thing — it stops you from doing what you really feel and know that you want to do. But there’s a trick.
Scene 1 — Writing
You are writing. You have had that idea for a while, and finally, you are there; you have started writing on it; now it will be!
The excitement makes you win terrain quite fast — the introduction and setting of the scene fly out of your fingers and into the keyboard and almost overwhelm the screen in front of you. Uh, is this a good feeling! And you somehow manage to phrase one catching paragraph after the other, following the idea but adding more and better stuff along the way.
The story is going to get that special touch, that atmosphere that makes it good. Great!
Scene 2 — Artistic Break
After the first few pages of amazing quality of writing that will blow your readers backward when they open your story, you need a break. There are still tons of ideas to throw in there, but it is important, you think, to step back — like a painter, looking from a distance, an artistic distance, at the half-ready painting — to better see the big picture (literally, you think, and laugh a bit by yourself).
Doing that makes you understand that even though you have not really been sitting there in front of your computer for long, it has been so intense that you could need a cup of coffee.
The café is just around the corner. You go there.
Scene 3 — After Coffee
That was good! You really needed this — the outburst of ideas and quality writing took its toll and drained you of all the energy you had, you can see that now. From that artistic distance.
The coffee brought back, not only your energy but also the stream of ideas to work with for the rest of the story. Only, now you are in doubt… there are several ways this story could proceed from here. And now, that you are on your way back home after this inspirational and energizing journey into the land of milk and coffee, you are actually sure about only one thing: that you must continue with this story. Somehow.
Maybe the artistic distance became a bit too far. Perhaps you could have made a cup yourself in your own kitchen. You start doubting. On the story, the ideas, the distance — everything.
Scene 4 — Feeling Lost
That computer had symbolically fallen asleep while you were away. While you were re-gaining your energy, for a short while, the computer was just resting. Typically! Or — you caught yourself in thinking silly thoughts — why was that typical? What should that mean? Better get focused on the task, the story, the ideas, the writing — that story, that amazing story!
You are almost crying. You feel lost. Have no idea how to proceed with this. There is the keyboard, and it is your keyboard that you have keyed on so many times. But now it looks at you like the ugly, scary, grinning face of an evil computer beast that decided to sleep while you were trying to get your energy back.
Suddenly you have been transposed to a different instrument in the symphony, or to a different orchestra, a different universe. You feel extremely lost. So lost.
You do not touch those keys. You are too sad. Cannot write like this — it would not become any good: nobody would read whatever sad words could come out of this depression.
You go to bed.
Scene 5 — Awakening
Wow! How did that happen?!
You don’t remember to have fallen asleep. It must have happened immediately when you threw yourself on the bed. But you do definitely remember that you woke up with an “Heureka!” on your lips. In fact, you may have shouted it out in the room — in your sleep — because a neighbor was now busy knocking on the wall.
Suddenly it appeared to you that you didn’t wash your clothes! You had planned to, and then came that idea of suddenly writing the story, and you forgot about the clothes. Also, the dishes, piled up from several days in the kitchen — no wonder why you decided to go to that stupid café: it wasn’t at all nice to be in your own kitchen. Certainly something that needs to be done something about! And your writing corner is also one big mess! How did it come that far?! How could you even do any writing there until now?
Well, no time to waste — get those clothes washed, do those dishes, make some order!
Scene 6 — Zen
That is great! How nice it was to make the apartment all clean and pleasant to be in. After clothes, dishes, writing corner — it was not a bad idea to clean the bathroom and vacuum the floor everywhere. Okay, that silly neighbor was beating the wall, and it is early in the morning, that’s true, but now you can look around and enjoy. And you do!
How calm and nice. No disturbing elements in that painting that you are now watching from exactly the right distance. You do see the big picture now. You are there — you found the path. To peace around and within. To zen.
You make yourself a nice cup of home-brewed coffee, sit down with your old friend, the computer. And you continue with the next amazing chapter of your story.