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Mar/Apr 2003 WRITING: The Creative Silence by Christine Jette, RN, BA

Your rituals are completed, the talismans in place, the Muse appeased. Now you're faced with the actual task of writing and you can't remember your own address. Block. What a nasty word.You stare at the blank page as beads of sweat form on your forehead. You spit and sputter in the quagmire of language. Why can't you get the words on paper?

Writer's block is a mysterious, creative silence. Charles Dickens described his block as "prowling about the rooms, sitting down, getting up, stirring the fire, looking out the window, tearing my hair, sitting down to write, writing nothing, writing something and tearing it up."¹ One thing most writers agree on: writer's block is uncomfortable.

Reasons for block include disgust with the pages you've written so far, you're distracted, your mind is blank, your mind is overloaded, you're tired, you feel ill, you don't like the project, you've discovered a problem in the premise that can't be resolved, you fear rejection, you fear success, or fill in your own reason here.

Writer's block has many causes and just as many solutions. Here are a few ways writers get themselves writing again: Check for external causes like stress, illness or fatigue and fix or eliminate them first. Work on only one idea or small point at a time. Keep a notepad handy for good ideas as they fly by, write them down and let them go.

Continue focusing on one idea. Don't let an overloaded mind derail you. Don't get hung up on one word. Write a string of xxxxx's and fill in the word later. Begin a paragraph with a question. Answer the question and then delete the question itself. Stop the day's work in an easy place, even mid-sentence. Resume work the next day in the same place. Retype your last page and keep going.

Write as fast as you can. Get your banter down on paper. Revise later. Brainstorm for ideas. Sit at your desk and let your mind wonder about the piece. Make notes of your wanderings. Make a list of all possible directions your piece can go. Start over again from a different perspective.

If your desk is cluttered, your mind is cluttered. Clean your workspace. Make your writing environment as pleasant as possible. Change where, when or how you write. Set the project aside for a while. Write someone a letter or make an entry in your journal. Meditate or exercise. Do something creative like go to an art museum or play. Become willing to pitch the whole project and work on another idea.

My favorite book on the subject is Victoria Nelson's On Writer's Block: A New Approach to Creativity. (Houghton Mifflin, 1993). If you ever find yourself without words, make Nelson's book your priority. You'll never look at a blank page the same way again.

Pen to paper:

Write an emergency plan for writer's block. What will you do when the Muse leaves without notice?

Coming Next Month: The Rejection Blues

FOOTNOTE
¹Plotnik, Arthur. The Elements of Authorship. (Lincoln, Nebraska: iUniverse.com, 2000), p.161.