aqua fortis

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Writer's Block


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:

David T. Macknet said...

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.

Sarah Stevenson said...

Yep.

That mean voice in my head is distressingly loud sometimes, though...

Ker said...

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?

Sarah Stevenson said...

So right! And to that end, we have a well-stocked fridge and a small army's supply of two-buck Chuck. :)