A loss for words
I want to apologize to the readers of my blog.
I have not published anything in the last few months because it took me a while to decide what I wanted to write about. It has not been easy. Struggling to figure out what to write about next, I thought it would be interesting to write about precisely that: the frustration that comes with wrestling the words out of my mind and onto the page and being satisfied with what I’ve written.
My partner is a fellow writer himself, and he can write and publish a new issue of his newsletter every week. It always astonishes me how well-written every segment of the newsletter is, and even more amazing is how it seems like it comes so easy to him. However, as someone once told me, “Writing is work.” When I’ve brought up to my partner my amazement that he can write every week while I struggle with writer’s block for months, he reminds me that I am a much more creative writer than he is and that he could never dream up half the ideas that I do.
He knows where every comma and paragraph break should be, how to structure every sentence to make his writing the best possible version that it can be. For me, it can be incredibly frustrating when something does not come out on the page how I see it in my mind, or when I’m fumbling for the words to best express my thoughts. Writers have different styles and niches, and maybe I’m just not used to writing in a blog or a newsletter format. As my partner says, I’m creative. I like to write poetry and stories. When I’m not writing in a narrative or story form, I’m not bleeding every word out of my soul onto the page, and the words don’t flow the same way as they do when it’s fictional characters living vicariously through my imagination.
When you’re writing about challenging subject matter, as I did some previous articles, the details matter. That’s the case when you’re writing nonfiction, and it’s not my strength as a writer. My partner assists me with editing, and he thinks that my writer’s block is a matter of organizing my thoughts. I believe this is true because I do have so many subjects and topics in my mind that it can be challenging to decide which subject(s) to tackle. In the end, you never know what can pour out when the pen hits the page, and I can be my harshest critic. The question I ask myself is, does writer’s block exist? The answer, I think, depends on the writer.
