Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Leaving Writer's Block
Last night, I took out from my rarely-opened cabinet an old notebook containing the beginnings of a story I had conceived so many years ago and had left hanging for almost as long. I took it out of storage so that I could once again try to get past this perpetual writer's block I've been stuck with since the last year of high school.
It has been more than a year since I've written, really written. By writing, I don't mean the normal, everyday kind of writing that even people who have no real inclination or desire to write find themselves doing so anyway. I don't even mean the kind of writing that you do on an online journal or some such thing. Yes, blogging and journal-keeping is real writing in its very real sense. Hell, I've been neglecting even that lately. I don't mean that, though.
I mean the kind of writing where you actually make an effort to check your spelling and grammar, study the coherence of your sentences and the flow of your paragraphs. Where you make an attempt to conform to at least the basic rules of writing. The kind we used to do when I was a creative writing major in college. When my everyday routine consisted of writing workshops and writing portfolios instead of codal provisions and hip-high piles of cases.
I think the last time I experienced that sort of writing was the day I finished editing the pieces I'd included in the final portfolio we had to submit for our practicum class. After that? Well, job hunting and then law school basically took over my entire existence.
It's been even longer than that since I've written fiction. I used to think I would be a fiction-writer. After all, I'd been making up and writing stories since I was in seventh-grade. Then, fourth year high school came. Though the story ideas kept coming, the words needed to actually put those ideas into paper refused to be written. The energy and excitement I used to feel upon tranferring those pictures in my head from my brain to my pen then to the paper were gone. There's a certain frustration in having so many images in your mind and being unable to put them into words. I don't know how it began or what happened to bring it about. All I knew was that I was hopelessly blocked. I've been stuck in that limbo called writer's block since then. Even when I went to college and took up creative writing, I never got back on track. I chickened out and chose to write about real things instead. As for the story ideas, they just kept piling up in my mind, and now I'm afraid that they're starting to fade from my memory.
I miss my years of writing stories. I miss going to National Bookstore to get a fresh notebook I plan to fill with the images crowding my head. I miss waking up an hour early so that I can work on another scene or two. I miss filling the mugs on my desk with tubes of sign pen that had just run out of ink.
Somehow, blogging or journal-keeping doesn't quite give the thrill that the writing I used to do gave me. I suppose that's because there's no real honesty in that kind of writing. Sure, you write about real things, about real life. When it comes down to it, though, in blogging, you only write about the reality that you choose and dare to share with others. Deny it all you want, but one more often than not censors his/her own words when they are placed on a public forum. There's always that acute awareness that there are other pairs of eyes reading those words. So, you stop, you think, you assess. And then you pick through your words which reality you don't care to share with your readers. It's different when you're just writing for yourself, when you know that only your eyes will read those pages.
I'd almost forgotten how much I missed writing just for myself. Now that I've taken out that notebook from my cabinet, hopefully, I'll remember again. And hopefully, this damned writer's block will leave me for good.
It has been more than a year since I've written, really written. By writing, I don't mean the normal, everyday kind of writing that even people who have no real inclination or desire to write find themselves doing so anyway. I don't even mean the kind of writing that you do on an online journal or some such thing. Yes, blogging and journal-keeping is real writing in its very real sense. Hell, I've been neglecting even that lately. I don't mean that, though.
I mean the kind of writing where you actually make an effort to check your spelling and grammar, study the coherence of your sentences and the flow of your paragraphs. Where you make an attempt to conform to at least the basic rules of writing. The kind we used to do when I was a creative writing major in college. When my everyday routine consisted of writing workshops and writing portfolios instead of codal provisions and hip-high piles of cases.
I think the last time I experienced that sort of writing was the day I finished editing the pieces I'd included in the final portfolio we had to submit for our practicum class. After that? Well, job hunting and then law school basically took over my entire existence.
It's been even longer than that since I've written fiction. I used to think I would be a fiction-writer. After all, I'd been making up and writing stories since I was in seventh-grade. Then, fourth year high school came. Though the story ideas kept coming, the words needed to actually put those ideas into paper refused to be written. The energy and excitement I used to feel upon tranferring those pictures in my head from my brain to my pen then to the paper were gone. There's a certain frustration in having so many images in your mind and being unable to put them into words. I don't know how it began or what happened to bring it about. All I knew was that I was hopelessly blocked. I've been stuck in that limbo called writer's block since then. Even when I went to college and took up creative writing, I never got back on track. I chickened out and chose to write about real things instead. As for the story ideas, they just kept piling up in my mind, and now I'm afraid that they're starting to fade from my memory.
I miss my years of writing stories. I miss going to National Bookstore to get a fresh notebook I plan to fill with the images crowding my head. I miss waking up an hour early so that I can work on another scene or two. I miss filling the mugs on my desk with tubes of sign pen that had just run out of ink.
Somehow, blogging or journal-keeping doesn't quite give the thrill that the writing I used to do gave me. I suppose that's because there's no real honesty in that kind of writing. Sure, you write about real things, about real life. When it comes down to it, though, in blogging, you only write about the reality that you choose and dare to share with others. Deny it all you want, but one more often than not censors his/her own words when they are placed on a public forum. There's always that acute awareness that there are other pairs of eyes reading those words. So, you stop, you think, you assess. And then you pick through your words which reality you don't care to share with your readers. It's different when you're just writing for yourself, when you know that only your eyes will read those pages.
I'd almost forgotten how much I missed writing just for myself. Now that I've taken out that notebook from my cabinet, hopefully, I'll remember again. And hopefully, this damned writer's block will leave me for good.
# Lyn found a missing piece @ 9:55 PM 
