Avi

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Puzzled

blocksToby 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”

  1. 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!

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  2. 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.

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  3. 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.

    Reply

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