Writer's block, my enemy

I wish I knew who made this, so I can credit them.

I think I experienced my first genuine exposure to writer's block recently. I struggled to string together a creative sentence for either of my stories and my poetry all went unfinished. Fortunately, I was still able to write essays and did my assignments on time. My brain must have reasoned that because essays are scholarly, they can't be creative and/or fun. It was wrong, but shhh, it's a secret.

It wasn't a nice feeling, opening a Word document and being incapable of writing anything. I think it hurt not only mentally, but spiritually and emotionally. I felt defeated, crushed by my severe inability to write. And I didn't tell anyone. I made out everything was fine, I was fine, it's all good and dandy...

Whatever. I'm glad it's over. How do I know it's over? Good question. I received chapter eleven of my collaborative story from Daniel late last month and only last week mustered up the will to write the next chapter. It started off hard but once I gave myself specific bullet points to follow, I found it much easier to get into the flow. I finished the chapter, checked it over and then sent it off to Daniel before I could change my mind.

That left my main story. My experimental work (do I do any other kind?). It was nearing a month since the story had last been touched and it was feeling neglected. I blew the dust off the laptop screen and gritted my teeth. I could do this. What was one measly chapter in a completely new narrative voice?

Bloody hard work. It was only after I realised that actually, I DO have a very detailed plan to follow, that I could sit down and get something done. I was able to finish it and even exceed my expectations for the chapter. When I started it, I wasn't so sure about the new narrator. Now? I totally love her. The following chapter isn't going so well but that's because I wrote it in my notebook first and I didn't have any notes to refer to. Right now, it's more of a skeleton chapter than a fully-fleshed out one. Yep, creepy imagery.

Click here to read a poem I wrote about writer's block last year. You know, before I had been crippled by the experience first hand.