One
of my blogging friends recently talked about a corollary or, perhaps,
expanded definition of writer's block that includes the
difficult-to-ignore feeling that one's writing, to put it plainly,
sucks. That the suckitude is all-encompassing and inescapable. And
that feeling of suckitude keeps you from writing.
I'm
very familiar with this species of writer's block. I guess if you're
prone to it in the first place, it never really goes away. And I
wonder how other people deal with it. Sometimes I have a deadline, so
it's a matter of B.I.C. - Butt In Chair. I have to do it. It's my
work and somebody needs to see it by a certain date. Then, it's like
homework: there's just no getting out of it, and if it sucks, too
bad. It still has to be done.
Other
times I spend days or weeks in a funk; that seems to be my preferred
M.O. I eventually get over it and want to write again; eventually get
to the point where I'm willing to risk the suckitude. Why? How? Who
knows? I guess because ultimately creating stuff is the only thing I
really want to do, no matter how hard it is or how much it sucks
sometimes. I can't help it. It's just what I'm meant to be. Nothing
else will do.
4 comments:
Everybody goes there, whether they're writing a novel, a PhD, or writing code. There are certainly different kinds of block in there, but they're all about insecurity, low self-worth, self-doubt.
We can hope that, eventually, it'll go away.
Yep.
That mean voice in my head is distressingly loud sometimes, though...
A libation usually helps! Since I find writer's block to often be a product of over-self-consciousness, what better to lower one's literary inhibitions?
So right! And to that end, we have a well-stocked fridge and a small army's supply of two-buck Chuck. :)
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