The worst thing about going through one of those phases, which I could call writer’s block if I felt qualified to claim the title of writer, is that it’s not like the thoughts and ideas stop striking you. Or that the urge to write stops bugging you (though it bugs you less often). It’s that the words and sentences don’t flow into your mind – they tumble their way into it. I have no idea what the creative writing process looks like for other writers – but I tend to think in terms of sentences that I tap out on the keyboard not thoughts to convert into sentences that I then put down. Usually a spigot, that gets its word feed from elves living in the gamma wave reaches of my mind, opens up and starts letting words already arranged in fully formed sentences flow onto a mental teleprompter screen. So when my elves go on strike for lack of leisure time they start torturing me by turning the spigot off. Or if they’re terribly annoyed with me, by turning it on but sending through a welter of words – a jumbled mass of proto-sentences that can look like a hopeless, mangled, tangle of wool instead of the lovely, silvery, wavy thread of type that I usually see.You may wonder, dear reader, why I bother to write at all in those phases? I usually don’t. But the blocks seem to come more often and last longer. Since writing is one of the things that makes me happy I’m trying to actively find a way past them. One way is to become better at untangling wool…something that, taking the adage Practice makes Perfect to heart, I’m hoping to do by just writing more regularly. Over time I shall hopefully be able to write passably, even when my creative (s)elves are speaking gibberish…umm Elvish… to me. Those damn elves are almost certainly as moody as I am and even if I gave in to their demand for a better health plan today (e.g., more quiet time)*, they would find a new reason to be miffed every now and then.
So you may see more posts, some of which may not meet your high standards for what can be classified as an interesting read. Indulge me, dear reader, and blame those – at least in the medium term - on the fact that I’m still learning Elvish – and while I’m learning, something is bound to be lost in translation.
