Writers Block?

Have you ever faced writers block? You know, that moment when you feel like you have something to say, but the words get stuck in the back of your brain. It is one of the most frustrating things to experience. It is even worse when you write something, just for the sake of writing, and then realize that it is actually rubbish. The words that mean something are stuck behind that impenetrable wall, and all that is accessible is the goop of everyday verbiage.

In retaliation, one reaches for the most desperate of topics. The topic of writers block itself. Here we go then. Follow me through a brief history of writing.

There was a time, when the words came up from the depths of my soul easily. I’m not saying that they were all good. I’m not saying that they were all works of great genius. But at least they came easily. I chalk that up to being the time in my life where I was undergoing major change. This is the time period that I call, “the dredging of Lake Amanda.” Do you know what dredging is? No? You are raising your eyebrows… Let me describe.

Every once in a while a lagoon or lake becomes so full of sediment that it can no longer support the same life that it did before. Normally, this sediment would be washed away by natural forces, such as rain or the flux and flow of the tides. However, humanity, being primarily made up of silly humans, sometimes stops water from doing what it was meant to do. We dam our rivers and build freeways across lagoons, making it necessary to dredge them every couple of years. Dredging involves a chain of buoys, nets and hoses that are dragged slowly across the surface of a shallow body of water by a barge. The hoses suck up the sludge from the bottom of the lake or lagoon and it is carted away to be used as fertilizer. Anyways, this analogy is meant to demonstrate that there was a time in my life when I was writing tons and tons of sludge. This sludge represented the change that Lake Amanda was undergoing. I was going back to my natural state. I needed to get rid of the muck that had accumulated in my habitat. So, I wrote all the time. There were some gems found within the sledge, and some really cool fossil thingies, but much of my writing from that time was made up of thick, black globs of dirt and waste.

Then came the months of still water. During this time Lake Amanda reacclimatized to the new feeling of life. Some words came out, but these were squeezed out painfully and slowly (think constipation but don't picture it). Lots of the writing from this era was scholastic. It contained words like “interventions” and “clinically.” It was boring, but it did not require the soul searching and agonies of the former season.

I can only hope that the new season in Lake Amanda is one of creativity and life. I hope that now that the sludge is gone, and the words are coming that they will capture something worth sharing.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is my attempt to defeat writers block. I may not have actually won, but at least I hit it a couple of times with a baseball bat. And now I feel better. Much better.

Stay tuned for a post about the meaning of Christmas. :)