Tag Archives: block

Where? I am.

I will start by telling you where I am.  People, who know I am writing a book, often ask.  Well.  How far along are you?  How many pages have you written?  I can tell my answers leave them silently wondering.  So, today is just a progress report.  I know it seems weird that I need to begin my discourse on writer’s block with a progress report on my book.  I wish it was easier to explain.

***  ***  ***

You see.  The problem is that my book is embedded in my daily journal.  Every day, a new page.  Here is how I now organize them.

I have a Journal folder.  Journal is broken down by years.  Years are broken into months.  And months, into days.  Days are pages.  All things, else, are folders:

Journal/

2011/

.

.

.

2014/

      2014-01/

      2014-02/

      .

      .

      .

      2014-08/

            2014-08-01

            2014-08-02

            2014-08-03

            2014-08-04:  This is the name of today’s page.  August 4th.

I find this particular YYYY-MM-DD format highly intuitive, because, the alphabetical is chronological.  No need to look for things.  My memories are embedded in time.  It’s easier to remember what I wrote by recalling what I was dealing with, when I thunk that thought.  And, it is easier to scan my work if it is sorted chronologically.  It synchronizes my eyes with my brain.

But, mind the zeros.  The zeros are necessary to retain order.  This would not work if I had named the 2nd as 2014-08-2.  Because, I would have a crisis brewing by the 10th.

My journal is all digital now.  But, I have volumes of spiral bound notebooks dating before 2011.  That year, writing by hand became difficult.

2011 is mixed between paper and digital.  It is the year my symptoms grew loud.  My new book actually starts around January of 2013.

Because, by then, I had received a diagnosis, and had the better part of a year to come to terms with what was happening to me physically.  By 2013, I was ready to move beyond it, as a subject for my journal.  I had accepted my new situation.  By the time 2013 was new, I wanted to write the book I had started, before my symptoms came, to occupy my thoughts.  But, that unfinished, old book, and those motivations, seemed too distant.

Writer’s block

I know what I should be doing.  I should be writing a book.  I mean, I have all the time in the world, given that I don’t work, due to my disability.

That’s what I have been telling myself this past year.  And, believe me, I have been trying.  But, it is time for me to begin speaking about what has been holding me back.  My book is the paramount focus of my writing efforts. But, I also have this blog.  And, I want to say things.  But, I’m telling you that this is not enough.

My daily output was dwindling.  I could see it in my journal.  It was evident here, on my blog.  And, it wasn’t from a lack of effort.  I was just finding it difficult to say the things I wanted to say.

Now, it would be wrong to refer to this problem of mine as mere writer’s block.  It was certainly a part of the problem.  But, it wasn’t even close to being a good, or proper, understanding.  And, I can only tell you this now, because I have been learning so much, this year.  For instance, I could not have even known where to begin, just last week.  Because, last week, this narrative had not yet emerged from within my fog.  I could see the shape.  I knew I was close to it.  But, I couldn’t properly describe what I saw.

So, I’ll begin as though I am discussing writer’s block.  And hopefully, after I go on to reveal how much more there was to my case of the dreaded condition, I’ll remember to come back to it, in summary.  This tale will play out over the coming days, here, on my blog.

If you want to know how to defeat writer’s block, I will tell you how I defeated mine.  I can’t promise that this would work for you.  Your circumstances are probably different.