Overcoming Writers Block: The Joy Of Fighting For Our Words

A few years back I was struggling with with a bad case of writers block.

I’m sure many of you know what I mean. Just can’t get the words out. Nothing in your mind. You try everything, to find words and rediscover that habit…but nothing comes.

And in time, of course, writing becomes a burden. Eventually you don’t want to go back, because it feels such a weight.

You’re not alone.

At the point this story happened, I’d been in this rut for a while. I’d done that thing where I’d told myself I was about to get going again with my writing and get back into new habits.

“No more excuses.” I told myself. “Tomorrow I’ll get writing again. ”

Tomorrow came. And I developed a really bad case of flu. I’m not talking man-flu, this was serious stuff. It was the kind of ill where your mind drifts and you can hardly speak or think straight — yet alone write.

But my illness became a great excuse. I could go back into my writing shell again. I didn’t have to face my fear.

This bout of writers block had been going on for a while. I’d tried my standard tactic of sitting down and simply waiting for something to come out. Waiting to see what was inside. It usually works. But I seemed to have lost the motivation and energy to try even that.

Then, by the time I recovered from flu, it was my birthday. So of course, I was busy with family and partying with friends. I still had no time to write anything. My computer had been frustrating me too, being too slow and winding me up.

Writing had become a duty, an obligation, not a calling or passion.

This couldn’t go on. Something had to change.

Finding The Way Back

At this point, I began to reflect on my writing journey. How I’d felt at the most creative moments of my life. The feeling of writing something from my heart. The joy I felt.

And then I began to feel something. It was a deep yearning. A longing. I began to see a glimmer, deep inside me, of a yearning, longing, and deep love for words. Deep inside I knew this. And for irrational reasons, I had been afraid to engage with it

But deep inside I knew the words where there, waiting for me. A lost love calling out to me to come win her back.

It was time for me stop talking and start acting. Time to fight for my words.

So, reluctantly, I opened my laptop, and somehow began to press my fingers on the keyboard. One letter at a time.

That was all I had. Single letters. Nothing coherent.

But from single letters, words began to form. Then the words turned into paragraphs. And the paragraphs became a blog post.

And as I poured out my heart, something shifted. It wasn’t an unfamiliar process. I’d felt this before. The sudden realisation that I was in the midst of something sacred. Something divine.

In that moment, I came alive again.

The words I’d poured out were like oxygen to the truest part of my soul. They revived me. They brought me to life again. It was as if I’d been a walking dead soul, which had now discovered it’s heartbeat again.

I felt myself again. I had come back from the dead.

And as the blood pumped and the life flowed, so did the words. They poured out from me like water from a newly discovered well.

I had found myself in my words.

With the tap of each letter, I unlocked the password to my true self.

Each word lighting the pathway to my heart.

The writers block took time to end completely, but it did. I’d begun walking the path, I’d taken first step…and it made all the difference

Finding Yourself In Your Writing

Even though I got back in the rhythm of writing again, I’ve since struggled with writers block again. We all struggle with creative blocks from time to time — it’s totally normal.

The issue not whether or not we’ll struggle with our writing. We will.

All of us will suffer creative blocks from time to time. The art is to manage those struggles well, to keep working through them, and making sure we learn from them.

Little moments like this remind me of why I fell in love with writing in the first place. They remind me that deep down, this is a love that won’t die. I’ll always come back to it. Because I love it.

It’s in the words I discover my deepest, truest self. And I think this is true of all writers — and artists. When when dare to create from our heart, we discover who we really are.

We all find ourselves in our art.

Whether we’re pros or amateurs, whether millions see our work or only ourselves, the truth is when we show up and engage in our creative work, when we create from our authentic self, we find ourselves right there.

Whatever you create, there you are

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(Picture Source: Christopher Ebarb via Creative Commons)

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