Tag: Writer’s Block

Writer’s Block

robertmcloughlinWriting Advice, Writing Experiences

This article could be more accurately titled ‘Writers Not Writing’. Writer’s block sounds like some sort of external agency which is standing at the door prohibiting writers from putting words on paper. Because I think I may have it, I’d like to explore what writers block really is, for my own benefit and that of others as well. Interestingly enough, the term ‘writer’s block’ was first introduced in the 1940s by a psychiatrist named Edmund Bergler. For 20 yrs. he studied writers who suffered from ‘neurotic inhibitions of productivity’. I love that label.

Apparently, under stress, a human brain will shift control from the cerebral cortex to the limbic system. The limbic system directs the instinctual processes of the ‘fight or flight’ response. The limited input from the cerebral cortex hinders a person’s creative processes. The person is often unaware of the change, which may lead them to believe they are creatively ‘blocked’.

Blocked writers may have an increased aversion to solitude. Which is a major problem, since writing usually requires time alone. Author Phyliss Kestenbaum found that she needed to write in order to be aware of emotions. But when she fell out of touch with her own emotions, she couldn’t write.  (more…)

Is it Possible to Live a Book?

robertmcloughlinWriting Experiences

So I was thinking about books. About how one goes about writing a book. Themes, a beginning, middle and an ending. How an idea can expand, twist, and surprise. About plots, inciting incidents, pinch points, and tension. But writing a book can be hard. Easy to think of a story, difficult to translate it into the written word.

A person though, instead of writing a book, could read one, and we do. From the safety of a chair in our own homes, we read. If the book is good, we forget that we are reading a story by some author, and find ourselves immersed in a fictional world, living it in our own minds.

Then I thought, is it possible to live a book? That with books you may get three choices, to write one, to read one, or to live one. A few gifted people, get to do all three. But they are rare.
(more…)

Empty Pages

robertmcloughlinPoetry

It used to be that the words
would not wait.
The images came,
the words for them fell so easily
into the tips of my fingers.
But as of late,
there are few words.
To be certain,
there is no void in life,
only in the symbols for it.
It seems that for now,
I will live my images
without words attached.
Still, it is hard to let go,
hard to grieve their absence
in my life that has always
sought out labels to capture
and parade the act of being human.