Present Influences on Our Writing/Writers Block

"The future influences the present just as much as the past." When this quote by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzche came up in my cryptoquote for the day, it seemed fitting. Like most working class Americans, my present decisions are being influenced by the forecasts of a future financial recession. I don't know if that is what he meant or whether I agree with him. It seems to me that the future, not having occurred yet, could not possibly affect the present as much as the past does. I guess he means our fear (which may be influenced by the past), our hope, goals, and plans for the future influence what we do now.

An interesting question raised in our writers group last week related this quote to the dreaded writer's block. We were discussing why some authors of one successful book stop writing. "Does success overwhelm the author to the point she is afraid to try again?" Afraid of what? Afraid that she cannot duplicate the former success? Or afraid he won't live up to his fans' expectations? Afraid of the publicity she must face as a successful author? We may never know all the reasons. Even the author may not know why, for the underlying cause may be deeply subconscious.

We wonder why Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) quit writing. I know only what I read in a biography. "Although her first novel gained a huge success, Lee did not continue her career as a writer. She returned from New York to Monroeville, where she has lived avoiding interviews." Other very talented authors I know seem to experience a writer's block after a first very well written and much loved novel. Why? I'd have to ask them, but for this discussion, I'll just surmise the possible reasons, dividing them into influences from the past, the future, and the present.

The fears I spoke of in the preceding paragraph belong to the future. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of the unknown that has us busy with self-preservation. Another future-related reason for not writing may be simply moving on to new interests and goals to fill ones' days and satisfy the soul.

Writer's block that relates to the past include those demons of doubt I talk about in my workshops. Voices instilled by authority figures and peers when we were very young. "You are never going to amount to anything," we may have heard, and when we are very young, we believe everything we hear. "You can't do that." "No one is interested in what you have to say." and my favorite, "Who do you think you are?" with all it's negative implications. Lies all, but somehow they get stuck in our heads, and when we least expect it, whisper their ominous warnings. The voice that says, "It has all been said before. You can't write anything original, so don't waste your time," makes it hard to write anything. Another voice, "If you can't do it right, don't do it at all," creates a perfectionism that keeps us from trying, or causes us to scrap our efforts in frustration, when they don't meet our very high standard of what "should" be.

The present, however, may hold as many blocks to our writing as those related to the past or the future. One may be simply that we have run out of things to say. We've used up our ideas and need to put down the pen to replenish the supply with fresh experiences. A current crisis such as an acute health problem, an accident, a relationship problem, a loved one in trouble, may absorb us completely. When the latter is the case, we may find release in writing about it, or it may be too close to us for writing to be possible at the present time.

If you are experiencing writer's block for any of the present, past, or future reasons, the worst thing you can do is to flagellate yourself. Be kind, give yourself some slack, or you are just exacerbating the problem. Approach the keyboard or the pen with gratitude, the anticipation of pleasure, and the permission to write badly, briefly, and just for your own fulfillment. Remove the censor and the taskmaster. And let yourself know. "If I don't write, it doesn't mean I'm a bad person. If I write, I have the choice of allowing it to be read or not."

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."– C.S. Lewis

The Muse Returns to Play Word Games

I've recently returned from a two month stay in Colorado. My sister is well on the road to recovery from lung cancer. She finished radiation, and will have the results in a month. In the meantime she continues to pursue a healthy Ph balanced diet and an easily managed alternative treatment. 

After spending much coveted time with her, I find I miss her terribly. We keep in close communication by phone and e-mail. Having been absorbed with Joan's illness and recovery; first from surgery, then from a very serious case of pneumonia, I found my well for writing and thinking creatively virtually dried up. As I get back into the swing of daily chores, catching up on postponed business, and enjoying family, creative writing still hasn't gained its place at the top of my "tudu" list — but I'm working on it. 

As part of one of the lessons in the writing workshops I give, I introduce a few tricks for awakening the muse or stimulating the imagination. One of them, adapted from an assignment in a creative writing class I took many years ago, is one Joan and I enjoyed doing together. The original assignment was to take five random words (given by the instructor) and working them into a paragraph, and then developing it into a story. 

What fun it is to string five random, unrelated words into a paragraph that makes sense. Or to write a piece of flash-fiction from a descriptive title as a prompt. Another way to stimulate the muse is to look at a picture or photo and write a story about it. During Joan's recovery, she and I took turns picking five random words and then, to make it even more challenging,  wrote a sentence that contained them all. It was so much fun because my sister is a very talented writer. Since I've been home, we've continued the game by giving each other 5 words, then e-mailing back our sentences. 

For example, here is the first word list I gave my sister via e-mail. Hiding, Hostage, Majestic, Suggest, Thousand. 

Here is the sentence she made: The game you suggest sounds like it might be a thousand times more fun than hiding in the majestic mountains where we were taken hostage. 

Taking time out from working on various workshops I'm presenting in the next two months, I occasionally invite my muse to come and play. For example. Here are five random words I pulled from glancing around the office:  Bunnies, Calendar, Water, Challenge, and Doctor  (try to put them all into an opening sentence.)

Now let's see what my muse can do with that!

The doctor checked his calendar, before accepting the challenge to rescue the water-logged bunnies. 

Now here are five random words (picked from glancing at various papers and brochures near my desk). See what you can do in one sentence... or a paragraph as seed for a story. 

Complete, Saddle, Price, Mission, Soar

Have fun with words.