Some people don’t believe in it, other people suffer something chronic –
it’s one of those much-debated Tricky Subjects. Is it an urban myth/a
conspiracy theory/a convenient excuse for laziness…? People seem to view
it as the creative writing version of the lough ness monster or the
celestine prophecy or holocaust-denial. Obviously, all of these
things are just plain wrong – only an idiot or a psycopath would
actually believe in them. So surely the same applies to writer’s block?
I didn’t believe in it. It seemed completely irrational to me that
twenty-first century writers could be afflicted with such a strange,
Victorian-sounding condition … but then I started working for the Open
University and was blessed with the benefit of their excellent
literature on creative writing and I realised that writer’s block doesn’t just exist… I have it. I’ve had it for several years.
The thing is that writer’s block is not what you might expect. It’s not a
literary form of constipation in which you’re seated at your desk
trying to squeeze a tiny word out – actually, when you have writer’s
block it may be that you are writing heaps and heaps of material. The
thing is that the creative process is being stunted – it is the process
of moving “straight from creation to punitive judgement”, it is a
“system of ferocious self-cancellation” (p. 30). Really, looking back,
my experience on the QUB creative writing MA probably didn’t help as I
was surrounded by older, more experienced writers who would happily
attack my work like a pack of wolves given half a chance – not that the
work didn’t probably deserve it but it really felt pretty vicious.
Still, perhaps it will have turned out to be little more than an
over-zealous pruning and my future growth will be accelerated – anyway
that was 2004, let’s face it, I’ve had a bit of time to get over it.
Anyway, now that I’ve had an epiphany and realised that writer’s block does exist and that I’ve had it; more importantly now that I know what it is.
I can move on and make a start with the rest of my career. The key is, I
need to make sure that I separate the critic from the creative when I’m
writing. I need to give my work a little bit of room to grow. And I
need not to worry too much what other people will think of it. I’ll
begin by writing for me and I’ll aim to write only work that I am proud of. It’s a liberating feeling! I’ll let you know how I get on.
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