It feels like I haven’t written creatively in a long time. A friend reminded the other day that I do write. I write for work, I write poetry, I write prose, I keep a journal and I’ve even taken to writing on iPhone Notes on the train.
What I haven’t been writing is my novels - the two unfinished/un-edited ones that I blog about a lot.
For years I was focused on them and had a dedicated writing practice. It was even an adaptable practice - constantly changing as my children grew. I could type one handed with a baby sleeping in my arm. I braved the winter cold to write at 4am when the house was quiet, it was still dark outside and a giant cup of coffee kept me awake. I wrote in noisy cafes on a Saturday morning. I could even squeeze writing into a small pocket of time before work. And other days I would sit in the State Library for hours and tap away at my keyboard.
Now I think about writing but seem to fill my time with other things...yoga, work, hanging out at the beach with my kids, catching up with friends... and the list goes on.
Take today for instance. After a morning yoga class I had 5 hours before my kiddies arrived home. In my previous writing life 5 hours would have been an absolute blessing.
I had a luxurious 5 hours in which I could have written thousands of words. Unhurried, stress-free with ample re-fueling breaks in-between.
Embarrassingly I spring cleaned instead. Since when do I spring clean!? I had to stop myself from cleaning the walls with sugar soap - i) because I was completely over cleaning and ii) I realised I didn’t care that there were kiddie finger prints on the walls - in fact, I quite liked them.
Clearly on this occasion I had ignored Carmel Bird’s advice in Dear Writer: The Classic Guide to Writing Fiction:
‘You have the choice of a clean house or a finished story.’
Why don't I write?
I guess for me, the bigger question is why don’t I write? Why when I’m presented with a perfect 5 hour window of time in which to write I choose to do something I absolutely hate instead!?
Gary Disher seems to think writer block is caused by ‘failure of nerve, domestic and personal upheavals, fear of rejection, boredom, insufficient preparation and miscalculating the scope of an idea.’
I wondered recently if my lack of desire to write was related to changes in my personal situation. So I’m ‘unravelling‘ with Susannah Conway’s e-course to try and work that out. I figure by the time I’m finished the course there will be nothing holding me back!
Some more advice on writer's block...
Twyla Tharp in The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life sums it up nicely in one sentence:
‘Writer’s block means your engine has shut down and the tank is empty.’
The last book I searched for advice on writer’s block was my favourite book on creative writing; Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anne Lamott recommends writing 300 words a day - about anything and that by establishing a habit, eventually you’ll overcome your writer’s block.
I want to write...
The crazy thing is I think about my first novel a lot. When I’m walking along the bay and can see Stradbroke Island in the distance, when I’m collecting shells and she oak acorns on the beach with my kids, when I write about growing up on the coast of northern NSW...
It’s all there. There is nothing else I need to tell the story. I just have to start writing my first novel again...
Books I referenced on creative writing:
Bird, Carmel (1996) Dear Writer: The Classic Guide to Writing Fiction, Vintage Books, Australia.
Disher, Gary (2001) Writing Fiction: An Introduction to the Craft, Allen & Unwin, NSW.
Tharp, Twyla (2006) The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York.
Lamott, Anne (2009) Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Scribe, Melbourne.
