Dealing with writers block
There’s nothing worse than that feeling of stifled creativity – where you want to make something beautiful but the ideas won’t come. Amber McGown-Rules attacks the keyboard and finds her own answer to the curse of writer’s block…
I have writers block. And mouse hand. The worst case of mouse hand ever. Cold, all the way up to my damn neck! Need to pee, but don’t want to wake the children upstairs by flushing the toilet.
Don’t think I can handle another hour slouched over this damn computer reading webcomics. Oh, but they are cute. I just read one about a girl born with no nipples. Cute. But ohhh, this mouse hand! And writers block. The mouse hand is my body’s way of procrastinating. Maybe my hand just knows I have nothing worthwhile to say. It actually aches! My knuckles actually ache! I wonder if men think about all these things?
I need a haircut, girls without nipples, writers block and mousehand.
I need deadlines, that’s what I need!
I need a topic and a deadline and a swift kick in the backside! That way I could be brilliant!
Probably not.
4 half finished novels, 7 barely started articles and a whiny weblog. I don’t need deadlines, I need talent. No…that’s not it. I’m being too hard on myself. I need inspiration. Yeah, yeah, yeah, inspiration! I remember that feeling…always having something grand and important and revolutionary to say! The plans I had, I was going to take over the world! I mean, I was going to travel in exotic places and eat incredile food and take pictures that would win me prizes and I was going to have lovers. Not just dudes I slept with – lovers – like Mae West and Marlene Dietrich and Dorothy Lamour and Rita Hayworth. Oh, weren’t they beautiful, their hair just right, their gorgeous hips swinging back and forth? They were real women, and men loved their curves and bumps and girth. I would have been great as one of those girls! What happened to that?
Oh, this mouse hand, it’s unbearable! And this terrible keyboard doesn’t type very well, it’s too sticky.
Once I’ve come back from travelling and having international lovers, I am going to make peace with my childhood, forgive that awful man for what he did, stop being so angry with everyone who didn’t want me. Yes, and when everything is just perfect, when we all get along and Christmas time is spent happily around the table, laughing and drinking, with no fights or standoffs, then I’m going to fall in love, with a talented man, a man who can draw and sing and who is kind and looks good and is well spoken and is funny and not too loud, but isn’t shy, and then he’ll fix all the little things I can’t fix myself, especially this freezing cold mouse hand I have!
And then when that happens, I will have things to write about, amazing, inspired, breathtaking experiences that people will want to read and see and be a part of. So that’s the secret to success, live a long life, full of wonderful things, then you will be brilliant! Ok, but wait – I have to wait a long time for that. A whole lifetime. So that’s not it…that’s not how you do it.
What, what, what must I do to be brilliant? Immerse myself in other people’s brilliance?
Yes, I will read books and look at pictures and listen to music, all kinds of music, so I don’t miss a thing, not one brilliant inspired thing, and then I will be armed with so much creativity that I will not be able to stop, I will write and draw and play forever!
But that doesn’t help, no, because I’ve done that before and all it does is make me want to sleep…sleep because why would I even try when everyone else is so damn talented?
So what is it then?
Must I just…keep trying? Keep making mistakes, keep pushing myself, keep dragging myself out of bed, keep letting my heart be broken, just…keep on going? Surely that’s not what all those talented, special people do? Simply get up and give it a go? That’s so…so…well, normal. Uninspired. Simple.
That’s it? You just do it?
