Writer's Block

“Oh, you write?” you ask. “What do you write?” you ask.

“You’d have to read my blog, I guess,” I say.

I’ve shown you this blog. You read half of the post on rugby, and the Seeing Stars on the Inside of My Eyelids piece.

“Nice poem,” you said.

“What do you write?” you ask.

(Frederick Wentworth had used such words, or something like them, but without an idea that they would be carried around to her)*

I shrug. I write snippets. I like to experiment right now. Words are fun to play with. They s-t-r-e—t---c---h. They shatter into a jumble, are picked up, and put back gthetroe in different ways.  They bounce,

fast: (rat tat tat)

and slow:

bang,

bang,

bang.

I want to create a thousand metaphors and throw them up into the sky with the stars. I want to count dust.

“What do you write?” you ask.

I don’t know.

For my words to truly travel (hey Germany, Ireland, everybody!) , to fly, to struggle through security rigmaroles at airports, to shake strangers by the hand, and see the seven wonders of the world; they will have to conform, to have a plot, to pirouette to a denouement, to walk in iambic pentameter through scenes.

Lately there’s been a wall sitting in front of me. I keep running into it face first, over and over again. It is made up of blocks of questions and self-doubts (are my ideas fresh, am I any good at this, does anybody really want to read this, isn’t this just for me anyway) and required dry, boring papers for school, stacked up and towering over me. On this wall is spray painted a Basquiat graffiti stating “WRITER’S BLOCK”. It is not signed Samo.

The grass has to be greener on the other side.

I want to just peek over, see the view over the wall. But it’s impossible to climb. At times there are footholds (another assignment’s done) but then it smooths out so that I slide back down to the ground. The ground is muddy, slippery, and turns into quicksand quickly. The ground near the wall is dangerous: I step on it, it sucks my foot in, and I struggle not to be tugged under and disappear. This ground could suck the entire world into a quagmire of environmental problems, overpopulation, inequality, and royal babies.  The world is not on my shoulders: I pick it up and hurl it back into rotation around the sun. Day comes again.

The grass has to be greener on the other side (my pony’s name was Bunny, for the record).

“What do you write?” you ask.

I write this.

 

 

 

 

*From Austen, J. (original 1818, 1984) Persuasion. USA, Canada: Bantam Books.