A Strange Case of Writer's Block
We have all heard of writer’s block in some for or another. Some of us have even been unlucky enough to experience it. As a formerly prolific writer, I never thought I would experience writer’s block; I just didn’t see it as something that could happen. And then something happened I wasn’t expecting, but it had nothing to do with my writing. It is often strange how that happens.
I had been dating Tasha, the first woman I had ever loved. I had dated others before, but this was the first time I ever fell in love with someone. She was wonderful; there’s really no way to get around that. She was also extremely intelligent, and that was always so cool. She always talked about becoming a writer herself, even though she hadn’t actually written anything, but she was one of those brilliant people who just didn’t have the time to do those “mundane” things.
At the time of this relationship, I had written ten novels and a plethora of short stories. The novels had not yet been published, although a few times they came really close, but the short stories were being published left and right. Editors knew me by name, and I was actually getting a few assignments here and there from editors that knew I was fast at turn around.
It was at this time that I committed the tragic action that brought about my demise: I asked Tasha to read one of my novels. After about a week, she returned it to me and indicated that it was not to her satisfaction. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it just wasn’t very good.
This was my best novel. I knew that. An agent had represented me based on this novel, and at least two editors had communicated with me about this novel for their publishing houses at one point or another. But Tasha hated it.
After that, I stopped writing. Completely. I don’t really know why, but it hit me really hard. This was the woman I loved, and she didn’t like my writing. Why was I even writing in the first place?
It was a year later that she broke off our relationship for reasons completely unrelated, but because of the impact of that moment when she rejected my writing, I didn’t pick up the pen again. I figured that if I was not capable of moving the woman I once loved with my writing, then who was I fooling in believing I could move anyone else?
Six years passed, and I pursued an MA degree and then a doctorate degree, but the only writing I ever did was the kind of writing required for my education. And then something happened. I can’t even put my finger on exactly what.
I was talking with someone who was telling me she was a writer, that she was going to write her first novel, and for some reason I blurted out that I had written ten novels (probably out of vanity more than anything else). She asked me what I had written recently, and surprisingly, that’s when it dawned on me. I hadn’t written anything in years.
Over the next few months, I went back to a novel I had left in midstream and stared at it for long periods of time. I didn’t know what to do with it. What right did I have to pretend I was a writer?
And then I sat down and finished it. One day after another, I wrote page after page until it was finished. My eleventh novel sat on my kitchen table, and it was complete. Since then, I have slowly tried to recapture where I was some years ago, and I’m finding that I’m not the same writer anymore. I’m still prolific, and I still write with a powerful voice, but there appears to be a child in all of my writing who was never there before. He stares back at me each and every time, and he reminds me that when Tasha made me feel I was not a writer, she had never written anything herself, and I had written ten novels.
I’m no longer apprehensive about saying I’m the writer I once claimed to be. Today, I can’t stop writing, but every now and then I think back on that period of my life when I had no writing coming from me. And I realize that such a time should never be a part of my life again.
Stumble It!
