I've been struggling with acute writer's block for ages now. Absolute ages. Years? Heck, have I ever been able to write without a struggle? Well, yes, possibly in school, writing essays and stories for dour examiners who just couldn't be bothered. There was something almost painfully joyous in being able to write stuff that you thought was great. The thing is, I read that old stuff now, and discover that none of it is particularly spectacular, by any means, but nothing can take away from the fact that once, back then, it made me unabashedly happy. I miss that complete lack of inhibition, that pervasive, intrinsic sense of self-belief.
But about the writer's block. I was to write this travelogue thingummie on Italy (which has been almost entirely whittled down to being about Rome now) for Dee, and initially it was all I could do to keep from prancing about with foolish mirth at being given the opportunity to let my creative juices flow. And flow they did, for exactly one day. Gushed. I spewed out 358 words in one sitting, feeling and tasting every word as it shot out from my brain and into my fingers and onto the keys and to the screen. Such satisfaction! Such a sense of exhilaration! Such a frickin' high! Such an ego trip!
And then, everything just evaporated. I close my eyes now and attempt to recapture all those elusive thoughts scrambling about in my brain, try to cling on to memories of experiences that I can still feel but just can't translate into words and things. Sentences. Pretty sentences. It just doesn't work. Everything is just so... so... stubbornly undefinable. So completely sensory, so abstract, so... so... non-literary! Gah! I try and try and shut my eyes tightly over and over and almost weep with the effort and nothing comes out. Not one word. And if I make myself write something, just anything, it's tripe, and I'm disgusted.
Even this blog. I've taken to reading other people's blogs a bit, just a few random bits and sentences, just to see how people go about this whole exercise in writing. Most blogs I've glanced at are friends' friends' friends' friends' (you get the picture) blogs, and most of the stuff there is the usual day-to-day I-did-this-and-I-thought-that. But for me, even trying to write something as straightforward as that has become a uphill task. So uphill, that I'm deeply in awe of all those who maintain blogs, put words in them and everything, day after day, without that sense of asphyxiation I feel when I think about putting up stuff for the "public eye". I'm clearly potty.
You might say, "Hey!" You'll say "hey", and you'll follow that up with a um-why-are-you-complaining-about-writing-by-rambling-on-for-400- odd-words, and that's exactly my point. Four hundred words of no consequence. I'm completely eloquent while describing my inadequacies... it seems to be the only thing I can spout without curling up in verbal agony.
No, the thing is, ultimately, that the problem lies with you. You, as in, the "collective" you. I find it impossible to write for plurals, because I'm a different person with everyone I know. And so, when it comes to writing for a common denominator, I never know which "me" to be, what tone to adopt, what style or language or mood to use, whether to be grave, or hilarious, or pensive, or contemplative, or practical, or silly. Arrghh... I don't say it right, or clearly enough... damn this writer's block! But somewhere, in this ridiculously incoherent and long post is the crux of the matter, buried under reams of garbage.
Yes indeed, I have, several times even, been told that everyone is, in fact, like that. Different with different people, that is. And that I should stop pretending like that is the greatest tragedy of my life. But therein, still, lies my ultimate excuse. That this "different-being" is what makes my inhibitions with writing so substantial, and my handicap with prose so... insurmountable.
Putting on a show for an invisible, disinterested audience. Speaking, incessant chattering, desperately seeking a spark of recognition, a nod of acknowledgment, approval, affirmation.
Unwavering coldness to contend with, a mask of disillusionment, of irrational anger, of helpless, silent misery. Refuge in the solitude of memory, an escape to another place, another time, anywhere but here. Distracted with nothingness, a pervasive vacuum. Staring into space, lost in idle hope, failing to keep abject boredom at bay. An aching for more, complete ignorance of what that ‘more’ is.
