12 February 09 - 01:19
Confessions of a Writer's-Blocked Blogger
A couple weeks ago my hubby commented, "There's nothing on your blog since Halloween." I attempted not to bite his head off, because it's really bad form to bite off the head of your best beloved when all they did was tell the truth. It was hard, though, because it was a sore point.
I began last September trying to get out a blog every two weeks, and I honestly tried. But by the time I got to the end of October, we were thick into our Anniversary events at the church, and then there was Christmas, and then there was the Annual Meeting and the two PowerPoint presentations and learning how to do PowerPoint, and... And they're all excuses.
The real issue, and I've been coming to grips with it for a little while now, is that I have writer's block. I've had it for years. Nobody believes me when I say that, because when I can bring myself to write, I write fluently and well. When I can bring myself to write. But when I can't, nobody but me sees the hours that go into trying to bring myself to the page. Oh, and of course, three months can go by before another blog appears.
Recently, I reread a lovely little book I have on my shelf called Unstuck, by Jane Anne Staw. She writes that there are two kinds of blocked writers. The first kind wants to write, keeps bringing themselves to the page to write, and can't write, and can't bring themselves to do anything else. The second kind appears on the surface to be incredibly productive and busy, getting lots of stuff done, getting everything except their writing done, because their lives are too full, and there's no time to write. But really, all the productivity is a smoke screen, a way to keeping themselves away from a page that's too scary to be faced.
I think I actually called one of my blogs "No Time to Write" just a few months ago. Clearly, I have the second kind of writer's block. Trust me, my life has been incredibly full and busy and productive since this past Halloween. I've hardly had two minutes to squeeze together to try to write anything this fall. I could tell myself that and repeat it as a mantra until I'd convinced myself that the only problem with my writing was that I don't have the time.
But when it comes to writing, time really isn't the issue. The issue is fear.
One of my friends who reads this blog has said to me a few times that I am very brave to put myself out here so honestly in this blog. I don't think of myself as brave. I think of myself as someone who has a desperate need to be known, which is what got me writing in the first place, all those years ago. But on some reflection, I've realized that it does take courage to write. To write well is to be stunningly honest with your reader, which means being stunningly honest with yourself, and that kind of honesty hurts. Like the sportswriter Red Smith once wrote, "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."
While I love writing this blog, and I have gotten a lot of positive responses to it, I'm realizing that it's a scary thing to walk out on this stage and parade myself as I really am. This is even more scary than writing fiction, because while I'm just as stunningly honest there, it's a lot harder to tell which parts are really me and which parts are made up. This blog, it's all me. And there hasn't been a blog that I've written here that someone hasn't come up to me and said, "You're awfully hard on yourself." But that's who I really am. If you think this blog is self-critical, you should try living with the critic who lives inside my head, with his constant stream of advice about everything I'm doing wrong and how all the good I do is invalidated by my mistakes. (I call that voice my ghosts, or sometimes my demons. While I don't believe in the devil, I totally understand why our ancestors did, if they lived with these evil little voices inside their heads, too!)
For the past month or so, I've been trying to nerve myself up to exorcise those demons and write this blog about writer's block, because I am realizing that this is a huge issue in my life. It isn't just the blog that I'm struggling with. Every Saturday evening, I come to write my sermon and the energy it takes is just about crippling. It takes hours and hours that I could be spending with my kids. Annual report time is just about the worst, I spend two weeks to eke out two pages. Even writing a simple email can do me in. But every time I try to write, that little voice in my head says, "How self-indulgent of you. Who wants to listen to you whining about how hard it is to write? Just give it up." And I do for another day, fear having won the battle again.
This past Sunday, the text was from Isaiah 40, about God giving us strength to rise up like eagles, to run and not faint. That passage was from a time when the children of Israel had spent three generations in exile, and had just about forgotten how to be free. The prophet calls lovingly to them and tells them that God isn't finished with them yet, that they can still renew their strength in God. Also this past Sunday, we had a marvellous service with contemporary music and a four instrument band to play. I even played the djembe, an African drum. I'm not very good, but it was fun anyway. I'd been thinking about getting back into the blog saddle again, and I decided I might never have such an energizing week. God has renewed my strength. So here I am, telling my truth again.
In Unstuck, Jane Anne Staw shares how gently she works with blocked writers, telling them to give themselves self-affirmations. I'm a good writer. I write slowly but well. I've gotten stuck before, but I've gotten out of it, and I'll get out of it again. I'm making it. I've got some good writing here. I tried the technique with my annual report this year, and it worked. I avoided panic, and I even made the deadline. The application to my sermons is still a little dicey -- there my task is to try to get the sermon done and not stay up half the night -- but I can work on it.
Courage isn't a synonym for fearlessless. True courage is about feeling the fear, and doing it anyway. I will have many more struggles with my writer's block. I am still a blocked writer who sometimes can trick the block into releasing a bit of writing rather than a well writer who fluently pours forth the words. But for tonight, I have written a blog. And for tonight, that is enough.
Blessings, Heather.
one comment
Heather: Thank you for sharing yourself – and your block – with us. As you share yourself, and as you share with us your readings, your understandings of God’s work in the world now and year’s ago, you are helping each of us face our own block – our demons. Brenda
Brenda McAskill - 21 02 09 - 19:55
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