Toby B of Athens, Georgia asks, “Do you ever have writer’s block?”
It was always a puzzle to me how many times kids have asked me that question. It was a puzzle because, as I understood writer’s block, it is a serious, clinically-defined mental condition, which prevents a writer from writing. It is, in fact, a form of depression.
First, I was puzzled that kids even knew of such a thing. Secondly, the question implied that this was something common to all writers. It is true; some famous writers (Hemingway, William Styron, and Virginia Woolf, among others) have suffered from this malady, but these are not writers kids tend to know. I dare say there must have been (and still are) writers for young people who suffer from writers block, but I do not know their names. Nor do kids.
Then I realized that what the kids were actually talking about was the commonplace pauses when writing to ask, “What comes next?” “Where do I go from here?“ “What should this character do?” and so forth.
When I am asked the question about writers block, I give three responses: that writers block, strictly speaking, is when a writer cannot write, that I have not suffered from that kind of illness, but that in the course of a writing day I pause to think about what should come next hundreds of times each day. That pausing—i.e., thinking—is what happens when you write.
When teaching writing, I think it is crucial to allow time to pause—a moment, an hour, a day, or longer. Otherwise, people think writing just flows effortlessly and that, if it does not, the person is not a good writer. Wrong.
No one writes anything effortlessly from start to finish. The kind of block kids are asking about are, in fact, writers’ building blocks.
4 thoughts on “Puzzled”
When I get a wee case ‘writer’s block’ I go shopping at the most expensive clothing stores, look at price tags, and say to myself: “If you don’t get over this, you may never afford such lovely clothes at these prices!” It works!
Considering the costumes I’ve seen you in, it seems to work very well indeed!
An excellent explanation! I always marvel at that question too. For me, the breaks of a day or more are processing time. I don’t see them as inhibiting the process, but part of the process. It’s not that I CAN’T write, I’m just thinking about what if should be.
Beautiful, Avi.
I find that adults, as well, ask about this thing called writer’s block in just the way you have described. One of the many questions exposing the misunderstanding of the writerly process.