IF THERE IS ANYTHING SCARIER than writer’s block, I hope I never discover it.
For me, writer’s block is more than just an inability to string together something pretty or useful. It’s like losing half or more of my personality.
Everyone sees the world differently; writers even more so. There’s a sort of constant subconscious framing of experience that we all do just to survive with some sense of perspective. To a writer, that perspective is a little closer to the surface, a touch more accessible, like a good friend who’s constantly mumbling beauty under his breath. When that friend goes away, nothing seems fun anymore. It’s worse than a bad breakup, because at least you can serenade your ex, at least until the cops show up. But the writer’s friend has no spatial location, nothing to grab onto or plead with. It must, like the court order, be merely endured.
See? If I didn’t have writer’s block, that would have been funny.
But eventually the clouds lift, or you plod through them with a shovel, mixing metaphors to beat the band until something just
clicks
and the world suddenly makes sense again.
For a while.