I find ghost stories interesting, and a challenge to write, making what I don’t believe believable. Along the way I’ve learned that a lot of young readers like to be scared. I often ask them why and. although I don’t get exact answers, I get the impression that young people enjoy the intense emotions such stories generate, emotions, moreover, wrapped in the safe blanket of a book. Ghost stories are a reminder that not knowing everything means that there is much in the world and beyond that has yet to be discovered. For young people who have not taught themselves (or who have been taught) to be completely rational, ghosts hover on the fuzzy edge of reality, a place of endless possibilities. 

How young people even know the term “writer’s block “ is a mystery to me. Over the years, however, I think I’ve come to understand what they are really asking. 

First, however, writer’s block is, as I understand it, a serious form of depression. And depression is the occupational disease of writers. But this is something more specific.   From what I understand, writer’s block is a fear of writing, a psychological state in which the writer becomes fearful of revealing—going public, if you will—of something (consciously or unconsciously) that is embedded in his or her writing. As a result they stop writing. I am hardly an expert on this, and in any case, I have never really been subject to such a condition.

What I’ve learned, however, is that what young people actually mean by the question “have you ever had writer’s block?”  is, “Have you ever been stuck, unable to think out the next word, sentence, paragraph, etc.?“ The answer is, of course! All the time! One hundred times a day! Writing requires a huge amount of thinking, planning, deciding, and so forth.  Pausing. No one writes in one long endless flow. No one. This is important, because when young people get stuck—which always happens to all writers—when they don’t know how to proceed, they think it means they can’t write. But writing takes time. Pausing. Sometimes for a long time. Any teaching of writing that does not allow time for thought gives a very wrong message to the young writer. Being stuck is very much part of the process, as is thinking out how not to be stuck.