Writer’s Block or Blockhead Writer?

I know many of my blogger buddies out there have had this happen to them at least once, and some of you more than that.  This is what I’m suffering through right now, even for blog posts, I’m resorting to posting poems I wrote years ago as “filler” for my blog.  I hate this, I hate feeling like this, as if I’m obligated to write something.  Writing for me, for the most part has always been cathartic, it’s been a healing process ever since I realized I could write with ease.  I was in the fourth grade and I entered a poetry writing contest.  My English teacher told me I was good, and she encouraged me to keep writing.  So I did, writing for me has always come naturally or so I thought.

No question, kick her sorry ass to the curb.

Putting pen to paper (yes I still writing longhand) has never been something I’ve ever struggled with, just like with those who math (yuck) or statistics (double yuck) comes with ease.  I use to help a couple my friends write when we were all in school because they struggled with writing, and I couldn’t understand why.  Why was it hard for my two friends to write the simplest thing?  I’m talking about basic college English courses, assignments that didn’t entail anything rigorous or demanding.  I was at a loss, but then I figured out that one of them was just plain lazy AF, and the other being from Mexico struggled to translate a lot of the “technical” writing in English.  So the lazy AF friend I told I couldn’t help anymore, the other I helped as much as I could.  But even with doing my own homework and helping out a friend I was never at a loss for creativity in writing a report, an email, a handwritten letter or postcard (remember those?).

But now, I find myself stuck in the quicksand called writers block, I’ve been editing/rewriting the book I began years earlier, that later became blog posts about Lestat.  The book is a lot longer than the 26 blog posts about him, I’ve improved on some things or at least I think I have.   But even after reading a book suggested by a very wise fellow blogger friend, Wendy Megget called The Right To Write by Julia Cameron, I have had trouble in the last month or do.  Julia says we all have the right to write what we feel, and gives exercises to help hone those skills as well, such as morning pages.  She suggests sitting down every morning and writing in long hand three pages of whatever pops in your head.   At first I was so happy and willing and sometimes I went beyond my three pages.  But now, I sit in front of my journal and stare at a blank page, this has gone on for two and a half weeks already.

I feel like this every morning about writing right now.

I’m at a loss, I’m frustrated, I’m angry and I’m tired of trying to figure out why I’m going through this.   I have two and a half weeks of blank morning pages, I’m struggling to finish my Co-Worker Road Trip Nightmare Part III, and even work is laborious right now.

I was reviewing a grant proposal from a notoriously bad writer/faculty member who thinks that it’s okay to use words like “dat” instead of “that” or “da” instead of “the” in his professional writing, no I’m not joking.   I couldn’t even rewrite his stupid proposal for lack of any type of writing creativity, and that scares me because that is not me.  Then of course the obsessive-compulsive, over thinking side of me begins to think, do I have early onset Alzheimer’s?  So I tell one of my boys who works for the same university I do, and instead of reassuring me he says “It could be ma, you never know.”  Agggghhhhhh! That is NOT what I wanted to hear, in any case this is what’s going on with me and why I haven’t posted to my post like I normally do, it’s frustrating as fuck not to mention emotionally drained at trying to figure out why I feel this way.

Until next time remember, chin up, solider on and watch your back!

The Huntress 915