Writer's Block

The best way for me to combat the onset of depression is to sink into the negative feelings and let myself experience them. Once I do that, it seems I can work through whatever is bothering me without getting sucked into the quicksand of a depressive episode.

For me, anger is best dealt with by ruthlessly refusing to allow it to get the upper hand. When I feel angry, I acknowledge the feeling and then do something besides dwell on it or express it until I find the energy dispersing. At that point if I still feel strongly about whatever pissed me off, I address it. 99% of the time, once the initial wave passes, the energy dissipates and there is no need to do anything about it. God, how I wish more people handled their anger like that!

This writer's block thing has me baffled. For a while I tried not writing at all. That was not unlike quitting a 2-pack-a-day-cigarette-habit cold turkey. In fact, it was a whole lot like that. Next, I tried writing a whole lot. I started journaling again, I started a new blog, I even looped back and started editing stuff I've previously written. (I absolutely love to edit!) That was fun at first. Blogging is fun and writing essays is relatively easy. Writing good essays is very difficult. At this point I am not shooting for "good"; I am simply shooting for some avenue to get back in the groove. The problem with blogging is that while I'm messing with my blog I tend to buzz around other peoples' blogs. Lord, can I waste a lot of time on that kind of thing! It is fun and entertaining. The theory is that I'm trolling for ideas. The reality is that I am frittering away valuable hours I could spend writing.

So, I decide not to spend so much time reading other peoples' blogs and to get serious about my own.

And?

Well...

Um ...

Duh.

You see I have this writer's block thing going on.

Tee Hee. I guess in trying to write my way out of a block I am standing in a long tradition. I just Googled the words "writer's block" and got more than 2.5 million hits. I the first two I looked at basically said the same thing: write something. Anything.

So, I'm writing about writer's block.

Who says blogging isn't narcissistic?? This is stupid.

Later.

Writing about the block worked!! I wrote a bunch of incoherent stuff and came out the other side with a couple of good ideas and a good start on a new story. It remains to be seen if it will pan out, but I spent several hours today writing 1500 words of new fiction! Wahoo!