Writers Block, WTF

20 August 2008

Writers block, WTF

There is a phenomenon that many people have experienced. That sometimes protracted sense of blankness that settles around the mind. Most often this happens under a great deal of pressure and itself creates more psychological weight on the person trying to force anything to stand out of that stark barren frame of mind. This phenomenon is known to most as writer's block.

Writer's block does not actually pick and choose which proffesions or persons it strikes either, it is a psychological event that happens to everyone in almost every endeavor. Characterized by a hightened sense of impending doom and a complete inability to bring to mind any form of solution, desperate or otherwise that might alleviate the situation. What is it exactly? Where does it come from? Why does it happen? Who is vulnerable? What can I do to protect myself? The question of it's causes and nature are readily answered. Writers block is a low intensity panic attack. What is happening is that the mind goes into a sort of self feeding and defeating thought loop. It siezes on the concept of the problem which generaly takes some form along the lines of

"I need to think of something that will impress everyone and not make me look like a complete idiot!"

After siezing upon this already impossible task of "thinking of something" the mind automatically balks at thinking of anything else other than processing and reprocessing that same concept over and over. The reason for this is the amount of emotion involved and the fear of getting distracted forces the mind to over focus on the horribly conceived notion that it needs to process wildly till it spits out a masterpiece while only giving it "think of something" as a thought seed. If anything does manage to slip through the minds automatic self squelching of it's own creativity and is loud enough to be heard over ones internal shrieking, it then faces the qualification challenge. This challenge being that it must be

"Impressive and not so different that it makes the author look foolish at best."

This too is a very difficult, if not impossible qualification to meet. Not only has the potential author clamped a vice around their creativity by fixating on the importance of the task, they are also now elevating the bar to the level of literary craftsmanship that may have taken entire lifetimes to polish. A prime example would be to contrast a fine novel or piece of prose that is highly regarded by the literary community against an internet comic strip hastily drawn in Windows paint program expecting the former with the effort and energy expenditure of the latter. The brain struggles against this "Perfection and now!" dilemma with nothing to seed the creative rendering process. It cannot be done this way, A seed must get into the creative portion of the brain before it can grow.

Everyone is a potential victim of the dreaded writers block, be it a house wife or a neuro surgeon. Having difficulty writing a letter to a friend is one manifestation. There are many others such as being unable to pick a topic to draw, write about, carve, mold from clay or hammer out of steel. Any creative endeavor that one stumbles at before even starting or during the process of is the same phenomenon. The good news is that writers block is only permanent if you completley and continually obsess over it. Most human beings lack the fortitude and obsessive abilities to maintain that level of neurosys for more than a few days. Eventually one will get distracted and your creative center will sieze the moment and thrust what feels like an epiphony in your face.

Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't, but it usually feels better because you are releasing the psychological pressure and your brain is switching channels so to speak. The process of writers block plain and simple is just a self induced stalling of the creative process by over focusing on what you need to do and not allowing yourself to actually start doing it. It is the mental equivilent of standing on the tracks watching the train coming. To better understand writers block one needs only understand a bit about creativity itself.

Creativity takes on countless forms in it's finished state but the mechanism is always one of two methods. The simplest form of creativity is preservative creativity. This is characterised by finding something that evokes a desired emotion by the artist or author and simply

"putting it under glass"

By transplanting or capturing this thing it becomes a work of art so in essence it was created as something new. The second form of creativity follows a very simple method. First you destroy something. Some people stop at the first step and call it art, but that's a completley different article. The next step is to reassemble the pieces into something new. The language chosen, mainly the word destroy was done so for effect. It was to get the point across that something is being taken apart. Be it a mental image or even several images or an object. A sculptor destroys the boulder but reveals a new thing called a sculpture, just as a novelist destroys reality and creates a new one within the pages.

In using the word destroy it is not to be equatd with obliteration. It is simply the act of redefining the outlines and shadings of the mental picture. By making a change to something it's former identity is destroyed and it isnow something new, even if it is sill quite similar. When writers block has taken hold the potential author or artist tends to stare at the whiteness before them frantically searching their mind for something to place into the emptiness. The problem with this is they are feeding their mind nothing but the emptiness as they stare at it and over focus on the dilemma. This is where a mental seed can and should be placed.

A mental seed need be nothing more than a thought fragment, other than how important this project is, that one can roll around in the mind. Placing a mental seed is as easy or as difficult as you make it. Before you worry about reseeding that barren stretch of brain you should take care of the main issue. The first step to breaking a writers block is to remove the terrible burden of perfection that may be hovering over ones head. The best writers start with a rough draft and read their work over again. No creature from the termites who create a home from pieces of wood to the human beings who created space probes from the very stones beneath their feet get it right the every time. Beaver damns collapse, monkies fall out of trees, and humans screwing up requires no citation.

Once the self defeating perfectionism has been addressed one can go about retilling the mind. There are things that can be practiced to get by chronic writers block. One way of doing this is free association of concepts. As an example say there is a grape and a monkey. The grape looks at the trout and says

"Hey Bill, get off my foot!"

Free association is like that, it changes as fast as the mind can work. Now that is not particularly useful in a detective novel but one can continue to play with free association for awhile and one might find a nice nugget of gold for that novel, or the ideal fruit to be held in that statues hand. What free association does is it trains the mind to quickly make fast connections between typically unrelated things. Once it gets rolling it can be nudged closer to what is desired if it doesn't already spill right out.

Another method, highly prized and under rated is sleep. Most people do not realize the actual damage done to their body and mental effectiveness by avoiding sleep. Sleep deprivation has been likened to alchohol and drug use for it's crippiling effects. Sleep deprivation, or being awake can be likened to a drug or poison that is taken continuously in tiny doses from the moment one wakes until they pass out. On the flip side of the coin one must also avoid hyper somnia or too much sleep, as this can cause other deliterious effects on the mind and body. Recent studies suggest most adults need exactly seven and a half hours of sleep this was briefly covered back in 2008 on WUOM 91.7 an NPR affiliate station.

In addition, although caffiene is generally considered harmless and energy drinks are sold over the counter one should be aware that they may not be entirely safe. Java Monster cans have an explicit warning on the can stating

"CONSUME RESPONSIBLY - Limit 3 cans per day, not recommended for children, pregnant women or

people sensitive to caffiene." (Java Monster, Big Black , Back of the can,2008)

The sleep defying effects of many energy products can cause cognitive deficiencies that, while one is affected, tend to go unnoticed until pointed out. The phenomenon of writers block although troubling to the most pressured of creative types, is not incurable. Although we may all suffer from it occassionally it is best to remember that the best way to defeat it is to rest, relax and stimulate your mind elswhere until it functions again.