I came up with so many ideas for this week’s blog post as I always do, writing them down while at work or in the shower or making a cup of coffee in the morning or during everything that I do that isn’t writing.
That’s the beauty of having a creative interest. How ideas can come to you when you least expect it so a clean notepad and pen or the trusty note app on an Iphone becomes your new best friend. However, this week I seem to have struggled with every idea that I had.
Usually keeping up to date with my blog is the fun part of my working week. I don’t find it too difficult to write a decent and entertaining post, and it never takes me long so it’s another satisfying tick off my long to-do list. Yet this week it just hasn’t been happening and everything that I have written hasn’t come so easily nor have I felt that what I put down was any good at all.
Whether it’s just a bad week on the writing front, or I’ve hit a wall of exhaustion and need a fortnight holiday in the Bahamas (yes please) I don’t know, but I thought if I can’t write a decent post I will just have to write about not being able to write!
Sometimes I think of myself and all humans as cars. If you keep us fueled up with food and water throughout the day we tend to be able to just keep on going no matter what. Wine in the evening gives us that extra push into the night until we eventually crash ready to do it all over again. Admittedly one of my more random thoughts but I hope you can agree to some extent.
I try not to stop from my shift at the shop to sitting down at my desk to write and it seems to work. In fact, it’s never until I physically stop on a Sunday or the rare more than one day off that I get when I crash and feel shattered. I am sure many of you can relate to this too.
While this is true most of the time, today I do not feel like a functioning car. Cars don’t need breaks or power naps or refueling every five minutes with chocolate and coffee. Today I am not a car.
I find that though writer’s block crops up during my writing time quite often, there is always a solution. Whether the solution can be found in a twenty minute power nap, a lay down and listen to a few of my favorite tracks (of that moment, they change each hour), unloading the dishwasher or doing something away from the computer screen – there is always a solution which allows me to push on.
But today this doesn’t seem to be the case. I got in from my six hour shift feeling tired but armed with strong coffee so all would be well, I thought. I began on the first job in my diary having crossed off work and felt good about the first tick on my list, but nothing was happening.
After half an hour at my desk I looked at my word count with disappointment – three hundred and fifty. I can usually write a good seven to nine hundred words in the same amount of time and that’s not even on a good day.
I left my desk and lay on my bed for five minutes shutting both eyes and listening to the strong winds of Storm Ali whipping up outside, returned to my computer but the motivation remained elsewhere.
I put my headphones in and allowed to pick two songs to listen to before trying again. Though I thoroughly enjoyed this, it didn’t boost my motivation anymore so I sat back down, ditched the other job and began this blog post.
Ten minutes and six hundred words later and I think I have cracked it. The solution to not being able to write is to write about not being able to write! Writer’s block? Non-existent.
A huge gulp of coffee and onto with my other jobs!
Moral of the story? Where there’s a problem, there is ALWAYS a solution. It just might not be as obvious as it has been in the past.
Ta ta for now
x