NOW WHAT?

by Melodie Johnson Howe

I’m supposed to write a column today but I don’t have Paul Guyot to give me the subject. Where are you Paul when I need you? Now I can’t think of anything to write about. Maybe I have writer’s block.

But I don’t believe in writer’s block. I believe in procrastination. I believe if you let a certain amount of time pass before you write again you will lose your sense of pace and tone. But, like wobbling around on a bike you’ll get the hang of it again.

Maybe writers block is just allowing time for the subconscious to bubble up into the consciousness. Then you take whatever confusing signals it has sent and straighten them out into a story. Except that’s a process. Depression can certainly keep a writer from writing. But that’s a disease.

Writers block must be like having an empty head. It’s as if the writer leaned over to pick something up and his brains fell out and now he has no ideas.

So what about impetus?

Mickey Spillane was living on an island off of Florida and walking the beach trying to come up with an idea for a book. He couldn’t. For the quick-writing Spillane this was devastating. His accountant called and told him that his bank account was getting a low. Suddenly he had ideas. The need for money can get many writers back to work. Did Spillane have a block? Or did he just need a kick in the pants.

Joseph Hanson said, “I have made a number of young novelists angry by saying that writing is something you do when you get up in the morning, like eating your breakfast or brushing your teeth. And it is. Or it had better be.”

I think writer’s block is not putting your arse in the chair and your fingers on the keyboard. It’s avoidance. So what if you’ve written five God-awful pages. You’ve written them and you’ll do better tomorrow. If you read those awful pages carefully you’ll find at least one good line which can spark you. That’s one line more than you had yesterday.

Writer’s block could be a sign that you’re in the wrong business or art. Here’s a helpful hint. If you think you have writer’s block: Stop. Stop worrying about writing. Stop writing completely. Stop pretending you want to write. Stop moaning about not being able to write. Do something else. If during that period you find that you don’t truly miss it then look for another job. If you discover that you hate your life without it then get back in that chair.

I went though a period of not writing. And for a few days I felt as if a load had been lifted off me. And then I felt and an overwhelming loss. How prosaic my life was without prose. Soon I found the vaguest of ideas beginning to excite me and my hand reaching for a pen. Maybe writer’s block is the way to discover if you are really a writer or not. Then again maybe only a writer can have writers block otherwise it wouldn’t be writers block.

If only I could come up with an idea for this column.