a first-hand account of writer's block

‘Hello there’

I promised myself that I wasn’t going to begin a blog post with the most revered prequel meme in all of history, but believe me,

‘I wish I could just… wish away my feelings.’

There’s been a lot on my mind, things I haven’t been in a position to articulate. Now isn’t any different, but I’ve somehow managed to convince myself that erratically mashing my keyboard will make a difference.

Writer’s Block- it’s something people, especially writers are all too familiar with. Woeful tales of its infuriating persistence have been narrated time and again. While I understood people’s exasperation, it was only until my first-hand encounter with this mental barrier that I realised how problematic it can be. Or at least, how it might seem as such.

Let me explain

For the past 2 months or so, I’ve plastered my head in front of my computer screen at least 6 times, but the words just didn’t… flow, you know? My sentence structure seemed off, my vocabulary just didn’t fit in and worst of all, I was in this strange position where I had to force myself to head on to the google doc I normally write and edit my essays on. Writing has always been something I’ve loved, and this unexpected dread felt odd.

After thinking about it for some more time, however, I have reached a more rational conclusion, one that doesn’t revolve around just addressing writer’s block as a problem that needs to be solved, or rather an issue that needs to be dealt with.

Whenever somebody writes a story, a poem, an essay or other forms of literature that people consume, you can immediately, by the style of writing, recognise the author. They use the same words, the same literary devices, and they might even be writing on the same topic, but there’s something very distinctive about the way a person writes, an additional lens to view the same problem.

People change, and so does their writing style, but I don’t think it’s that simple. Perhaps writer’s block is that weird pupa-like stage of evolution where you’re changing, and nothing seems right. Perhaps the same can be said of the changes that occur in someone’s style of writing, the tone they use when conveying human issues to other people, the level of descriptiveness and the devices they use to increase the quality of their work.

Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m not, but I finally have an excuse for my recent inactivity, and I will not be driven insane whenever I have difficulty in trying to write what’s on my mind. Evolution in writing style can only be a good thing, and it’s quite interesting to read older works, see them from a different perspective. It’s like an entirely different person’s work.

Honestly, I’d love it if this never occurred, if people could just write with a new and improved voice, but I guess that’s how ‘change’ works. It takes time, and there are a lot of instances where it’s incredibly frustrating and the only viable option seems like ramming your head into a wall, to return to what you’re familiar with. Life’s greatest pleasures are only discovered after ‘seeking discomfort’. Experiment and discover, it’s the fundamental basis for every good thing, every catastrophic failure that may have occurred in the course of a lifetime. However, it’s better to be a loser at Mario Kart than an uncultured swine who hasn’t played the damn game. Yes I know that sounds incredibly pretentious but ‘Ç’est la vie’.

~Lukshya