Overcoming Writer’s Block

Rarely do I have time to make a beautiful breakfast like the one above on a weekday. A dish like that is usually reserved for an elegant weekend brunch. But sometimes it is worth getting up a bit earlier to cook breakfast. Your family will pay you back with smiling faces. I found the recipe for these Portuguese baked eggs here. 

“Writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all.”

Charles Bukowski, The Last Night of the Earth Poems

A writer writes. So the writer who doesn’t is no longer a writer, he is a non-writer. This is quite frustrating and actually a potential nightmare for anyone making a living by stringing words together.

I want to share how I think writer’s block can be solved. But first, let’s examine the deceptive ways of inspiration.

One night not too long ago, just as I was about to drift off to sleep, I got this itching notion that I really ought to get up instead and write. I opened my eyes to the inky darkness of the bedroom and I lay there thinking, trying to decide whether I should get up or not. As my eyes got used to the shadows, the outline of the bedroom furniture gradually became clearer. I lay there and looked at this but I couldn’t bring myself to get up. Eventually I fell asleep.

Inspiration has a tendency to come calling when you’re in that twilight zone between sleep and consciousness, it nudges you to get up, it tempts you with an array of wonderful ideas. It also comes when you least expect it: It comes when you’re examining the egg carton at the grocery store. It comes when you’re running late to catch a train. But it rarely comes during office hours, when you sit and wait for it. In fact, inspiration abhors the stark office lights and the gurgling sound of the communal coffee machine. It dissolves in the sound of your co-workers’ banter and it dies in the sadness of your Styrofoam cup.

There are people who are so in harmony with the Universe that they are able to will inspiration to talk to them through the rustle of fall leaves and the chime of church bells. But it takes very good ears to be able to decipher that sort of message, and you have a deadline, don’t you? Meanwhile, you try to tease out inspiration with lit candles, soft music, and a bottle or two of wine. Well, we’ve all tried that.

In my experience it’s best to not mess with inspiration at all. Sure, if it comes, you graciously accept it, you bow your head to whatever power sent it your way and you say “thank you”. But it’s best to not think of inspiration at all. It’s best to simply learn to go without.

So I didn’t get up that night. Instead I got up early the next morning, a cup of coffee at my elbow, and a blank page in front of me, mocking me with its emptiness. I had nothing to write. Nothing.

A few years ago, I would have left my desk to do a load of laundry or bake a cake, in the thought that taking a break would ease things. But with age comes – fortunately – wisdom. Now I sit it out. I override the idea of inspiration. I sit in front of that empty page like a patient Buddha, and I will not rise until I have written something, anything. I can feel the block itself, a dead weight, a stone in my heart, obstructing the system. Still I sit there, through impatience, through anger, through boredom, even. The clock keeps ticking but I won’t even get up to refill my coffee cup. It is then, just when dullness is at its heaviest, that the block breaks, the stone shatters in my heart, clearing everything. A word. Two words. A sentence.

I remember a Rolex ad from the 1980’s featuring opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa. In it she said:

“I can actually sing my way through colds and sore throats.”

The same with writer's block, there’s no way around it, you can’t go over it, you can’t go under it – you’ve got to go through it. You write yourself through it.