How To Write When You Have Nothing To Say
on July 7, 2010 at 7:30 am
In case you don’t want to wade through the article for the answer, it’s this: just write.
A major fear, I think, of people who set themselves the seemingly impossible task of saying something new and fresh on a blog, a novel—or any writing venue—once or more per day is, “what if I don’t have anything to say?”
I am immediately reminded of the audio comedy sketch wherein the Sports Reporter is interviewing the centipede as the many-legged bug is waking along the street.
“How do you keep from tripping over your own feet,” he asks. …at which time the centipede starts to think about it, trips, and falls down.
“But, Reverend Wright! What does this parable mean?”
Image: memphismafia.wordpress.com
Heh. Glad you asked. Brothers and Sisters, we are talking about a myth. The myth of Writers Block. It does not exist.
“But wait!” You exclaim, “It does! I have it even as I type this… Oh. Wait a minute. I think I get it.”
I think you get it, too. But for the rest of us in the hall today, perhaps you could elucidate?
“I think what you are saying is that Writer’s Block isn’t so much as a stoppage as it is a cause for taking a detour.”
Right in one. Look at it like this: You’re in the middle of an important scene. Your character is held captive by a gun-toting baddie with little or no respect for human life. Hero is bound. Time is running out, and you need a good escape, but nothing springs to mind. Your brain shuts down, and you find yourself humming the lyrics to Beethoven’s Fifth under your breath. In other words, you’re dead in the water.
This is the time to stop what you’re doing. If you buy into the myth that you are blocked, you will be. If, on the other hand, you set the troublesome scene aside and move to another scene, one that is perhaps amorphously outlined, one that can, perhaps, go just about anywhere, you will find you have side-stepped the supposed blockage.
“But, reverend, that means…”
Yes. That means that what appears to be a Writer’s Block is no more than a ROAD block. And what do we do when the road is blocked?
“We… we… well, we back up, and look for another way to get where we’re going. I see! I see! It isn’t that I don’t have anything to say, it’s just that the particular road I’m on RIGHT NOW… is the wrong road for me. Today.”
There you go.
“But… but, what if I try to switch roads and STILL find I have nothing to say?”
I um… I’ve got nothing to say about that.
Note: Actually, Reverend Wright has lots to say about that, and will be getting to it in the near future.
Writer’s Block: When your imaginary friends won’t talk to you.
Loading ...
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio... and isn't it time you experienced some of them?
Discussion (11) ¬
Yes. It brings back for me that Director at theater school putting aside some writing I did, with disdain, and saying that a writer had to have something to say. I do not believe, to this day, that he was talking merely about ‘writer’s block’. Having a voice perhaps. But it demolished me. I didn’t write for years after, because I understood him to mean that I didn’t have a perspective on life that was valid, important, embracing of something new and or original. In other words it hit me at my weakness – that of feeling like a ‘nothing’. So guess what I have written about. Yes, sometimes you can turn something on it’s heels, have both the olive and the twist, and after all the Buddhist firmly respect the ‘nothing’, or at least the ‘emptiness’.
Loreen
This has been a big bugaboo for me for a long time. It kept me from blogging for years, and from writing in general for decades.
It was only when I realized that not having a cut and dried response for things like Capital Punishment or Abortion only meant that I have an open mind, and have to look at every case on its own merit that I finally got it. What I have to say is every bit as valuable as anyone else.
I was crushed, much like you were by your director, by someone who was opinionated and full of themself, and it kept me from expression for a very long time.
It is good to know you–we–have both risen above that.
It’s been worth the journey. I’m sure you agree. Thanks for your response.
Looking back now, the director worked for awhile in the theater in Winnipeg, was a lawyer by trade, and had his opinion about everything. He married a very wealthy young actress who was his student at theater school.
Looked them up on internet a few years back, as I did research on all my ‘old cronies’: (interesting how life turns out!) and found that the pair of them are still working small theaters across the country, he directing her acting. They never made the ‘big time’ either!
Interesting.
Just mulling over the recent debates; that in conjunction with what the ‘philosophers’ say is needed within communication, in order to develop humanity, and transform ourselves. The interaction we had around similar advice given to us regarding our writing; will thus be a test for me to ascertain how this theory can be put into practice. I shall speak only for myself.
I was not angry at the advice that I should not write. I have always held authority figures in too high a regard to feel anything but ‘unworthiness’ in their presence. As I said, and which I don’t believe nrhatch understands I have had in my life the task of
‘developing my ego’. I am not soon to part with it.
With such a perspective, therefore, one does not blame or fault the other, but rather takes the blame and fault into one’s own sense of esteem, and one feels unworthy, has low self-esteem, lack of confidence and so forth.
The distinction between the victim and the perpetrator
has I believe a similar dynamic but is I believe inapplicable here.
Just to hint at how very various is the dynamic within even a simple little exchange of information.
We were both kept from expression within the writing forum perhaps, but I understand that you have led a very interesting life, as have I. So no, I have the benefit of something to do in my retirement. As far as I’m concerned I’m ‘ahead of the game’ – I’ve got a lifetime to turn into stories, if I am given the time. And they needn’t be all ‘about me’, which I have learned my ‘tales’ of woe, often used to be. Don’t want to ‘blame’ anyone, but I also don’t want to leave myself open to be someone’s pawn or victim. My independence as a person, and what they say is needed – a freedom of conscience – (which we have not yet attained, by the way) is for me paramont, and is what I see through poetic action, which involves examination of the pathos within communication.
The comments here have been as interesting as the post ~ but first let me say that I adore the graphic you chose.
C. Dickens has always been a favorite of mine ~ Olive or Twist, indeed!
Many people have only one way to prop themselves up in life . . . by discouraging others from starting the climb. : )
The trouble is not what they say to us . . . it’s how we choose to interpret their words, and internalize them.
We allow ourselves to become discouraged so easily. At times, a hurtful word or glance is all that it takes to derail our fragile Egos.
Spirit, of course, waits patiently in the wings . . . ready to help us glide up, over, or around the obstacles in our path. : )
Thanks for posting, Rik!
Interesting point, Nancy. True and unfortunate as far as it goes. The problem is that it is so much easier to blame others for our lack of ambition.
Your comment coincides with today’s music choice, out in a bit less than four hours. Watch for it.
After what proved to be yet another difficult day of debate I must debate with you on whether or not that it is ambition or lack of it, that is the reason we cast blame on others.
Ambition is a difficult word though and (of course) would have many possible interpretations.
But that song out of Israel anyway, would, to my humble view, have to do with the freedom of faith. In the case of Israel and Christianity, in God; in pagan terms acceptance of fate. Ambition then would be constituted by your openness. That’s the only way I can make sense of it within the context. As usual, perhaps I’ve said too much, or I’ve not said enough, as in the post by Cindy Taylor. Hope to hear from you soon. I do think we share a lot in common. Thanks.
I’m all ears . . .
{{grin}}
Just going through the blogs attempting to analyze them in order to understand how the differences in interpretation arise. Unfortunately, I believe anyway, that I am a realist, and thus consequently my ‘fall’ in these cases is that I often perceive a contrast, nay sometimes contradiction, between words, and thoughts, and action.
Perhaps this complicates my life. But I have never been able in my observations, to confine myself, solely, to language, spoken or written, without considering also that existential context. Oh well!