I got an email from someone who wants to feature me on his blog's "Unsung Bloggers of the Week" series. He enclosed several questions he wants me to answer. One was: How do you overcome 'Blogger's Block'?
It struck me as a funny question. I am more likely to get irritable or frustrated because I have too much to say and not enough time or opportunity to sit down and write than the other way. Blogger's Block? The weblog feels more like an outlet, a means of helping me capture and explore things that I notice and find worthy of remembrance, than it does a source of burden or pressure, something I must answer to.
There are times I do feel some kind of "Blogger's Block" though. The other night when I spent hours reading poems, I felt both amazed and a bit dejected and empty. It's all been said, all these complicated feelings we have, this being human in the midst of a world that confounds us and takes our breath away, the poets have been writing about it better than I can. It left me a bit hopeless, feeling clumsy at the keyboard.
There are times when what is on my mind is too personal or political to write about. Not political as in Democrats and Republicans, but as in the comings and goings of groups and organizations that I am involved with -- who is cooperating and who is not and who resents whom and where I fit in the mix. And personal as in, I miss the man I dated this summer, and I wish I didn't. And I feel strange and displaced in my house now that Housemate's boyfriend lives there too, and I wish I didn't. I have pangs of envy when I go to put my laundry in the dryer and find their load in there, his and hers mixed together with an everyday intimacy that is missing from my own life. These are things I notice but don't write about often, and I suppose in those ways I am blocked.
The whole concept of Blogger's Block -- the pressure to "come up with" some kind of story or material that haunts someone at his or her keyboard -- well, I can't imagine it. There are stories and glimpses of life everywhere. Some of it I don't know how to tell, or I am afraid to tell, but it is never because I can't think of anything. The conception of writer's block seems to be based in the idea of writing as artifice, and the idea that the real world -- description and thoughtful evaluation -- is not enough to write about. One needs to come up with something else inventive on top of everyday experience. I just can't believe in that. I think you can mine everyday experience deeply and it will give you rich rewards. Of course, I am an "unsung" blogger and maybe this is why.
"I think you can mine everyday experience deeply and it will give you rich rewards."
I couldn't agree more. There is, however, a particularly virulent strain of writer's block directly related to everyday experience. One can get so caught up in the rush and whirl of everyday experiences that one is left without time to write about, or even think about, what's happening. I've found that I can't write about the everyday unless and until I step back from it.
P.S. I've always thought of you as a sung blogger.
Posted by: Outer Life | September 29, 2005 at 02:24 PM
Okay, sure, "There are stories and glimpses of life everywhere." That still doesn't alleviate the need to discriminate as to what might interest readers. This is not an accusation as I think you discriminate well. I’m only saying that just because the world is full of stuff doesn’t make stuff automatically very compelling, at least to many people. Even good writing can’t alter bad stuff.
I’ve read you for a long time and think the reason you never get Blogger’s Block is that your privacy threshold is very high. That is, you’re willing to write about, or at least intimate, what many folks would not write (or intimate) about themselves, and so people enjoy reading it, voyeur-like. (Isn’t that creepy.) It’s the way some people visit a daily soap, but without the usual violence and bloodshed.
Posted by: Richard Ames | September 29, 2005 at 10:28 PM
Just wanted to say I totally know what you mean about missing a summer romance, and wishing you didn't. I just ran into mine buying a burrito, of all things, and it about killed me. And I love the way you put it about their things in the dryer. It's so hard to find someone. Anyway, here's to happy memories - that have lost the sting.
Posted by: l. | September 30, 2005 at 02:52 PM
His n' Hers mixed laundry, as a concept, is way overrated. Mainly, it just means that my fleece socks get filled with her hair, her stretchy underwear gets messed up because I put it in the dryer when it's not supposed to, my white shirt turns grey because she doesn't believe in separating colors from whites, one of her itty-bitty socks is missing because it was so small I thought it was a lint ball and threw it out, all my clothes smell foofy because she put in some sort of girly "drier sheet"... well, these are just illustrative examples. But there's a lot to be said for one man, one load (or one woman.)
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