I've been horribly inconsistent with writing and recording the last couple of weeks. It's easier to sit out on the back porch after dinner, light up a cigarette (or 5) and read Stephen King novels.
I don't really believe in writer's block. I do believe in laziness, boredom and the creative doubt that make me feel like I'd do better to hang it all up for good and instead spend my evenings swinging my feet on that back porch with Annie Wilkes/Kathy Bates.
This morning, though, I came across an article in The New Yorker written by Pulitzer prize-winning writer John McPhee. I found his short paragraph on writer's block amusing---and more relevant to how I'm feeling than I'd like it to be:
“You are writing, say, about a grizzly bear. No words are forthcoming…You are blocked, frustrated, in despair…What do you do? You write, ‘Dear Mother.’ And then you tell your mother about the block, the frustration, the ineptitude, the despair. You insist that you are not cut out to do this kind of work. You whine. You whimper. You outline your problem and you mention that the bear has a fifty-five-inch waist and a neck more than 30 inches around but could run nose-to-nose with Secretariat. You say the bear prefers to lie down and rest. The bear rests fourteen hours a day. And you go on like that as long as you can. And then you go back and delete the ‘Dear Mother’ and all the whimpering and whining, and just keep the bear.”
Whether or not McPhee's advice is meant to be taken literally, who knows, but it sounds like good therapy.
I don't really believe in writer's block. I do believe in laziness, boredom and the creative doubt that make me feel like I'd do better to hang it all up for good and instead spend my evenings swinging my feet on that back porch with Annie Wilkes/Kathy Bates.
This morning, though, I came across an article in The New Yorker written by Pulitzer prize-winning writer John McPhee. I found his short paragraph on writer's block amusing---and more relevant to how I'm feeling than I'd like it to be:
“You are writing, say, about a grizzly bear. No words are forthcoming…You are blocked, frustrated, in despair…What do you do? You write, ‘Dear Mother.’ And then you tell your mother about the block, the frustration, the ineptitude, the despair. You insist that you are not cut out to do this kind of work. You whine. You whimper. You outline your problem and you mention that the bear has a fifty-five-inch waist and a neck more than 30 inches around but could run nose-to-nose with Secretariat. You say the bear prefers to lie down and rest. The bear rests fourteen hours a day. And you go on like that as long as you can. And then you go back and delete the ‘Dear Mother’ and all the whimpering and whining, and just keep the bear.”
Whether or not McPhee's advice is meant to be taken literally, who knows, but it sounds like good therapy.