Learning from Writer’s Block

A Journey into the Cold Dark Nothingness of Unwritten Words

I’m pretty stressed right now. This blog post is way past due and if I’m being honest here, I’ve got nothing. For a while I thought I had a thought. But it was dumb and stupid. And then a few days later another possibility for a post swirled around my head. It was garbage, I scrapped that one, too.

Having watched plenty of the Special Features that appear on DVDs, I know the only thing more tedious than actors talking about acting is writers talking about writing. Yet at the risk of boring the life out of our readership, I thought I might share my own recent adventures with writer’s block. It’s a cautionary tale, really. This is a common enough problem for many of us. Maybe someone out there can even learn from my struggles and ultimately my failings.

Writing is difficult. There’s a lot of pressure involved, especially if you care at all about quality. It is easier if you are assigned a topic, like in school. Everyone must read Chaucer or Hemingway or Dickens, and then write 8-10 pages double-spaced about “What It All Means”. Of course, at the time that seemed difficult. As high school or college students we got mopey and stressed about the task. But confined to the swim lane of “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, at least there are not too many tangents one can drift off into.

Peering into the sausage factory of this blog, I can reveal to you, dear readers, that as contributors we have little-to-no topic restrictions. Sometimes this freedom is freeing. Mostly, though, it’s a challenge of the mind and soul. “What should I write about?” echoes in my cavernous skull, without reply. A blank Word doc stares at me, waiting for ideas expressed with insight and eloquence. All the while a deadline looms.

Or maybe I might even have a topic in mind before it all goes stinky. Like in this case, I started out with a couple of ideas. When I first thought of them, I was pretty cocky about it. “This will be gold, now I just have to type it up.” But launching into the actual writing, it soon ends up reading like “grumpy old man complains about how things are nowadays”, or “over-educated smartass tells everyone what they should do”. I don’t want to be “that” guy.

Desperately scrambling as our Editor-in-Chief demanded copy, I mulled over some options. Here’s a sample of my half-considered but self-rejected blog post ideas:

“Let’s Ban PowerPoint”

I was really keen on this one but it had a Grumpy Old Man Index score of roughly 1,000,000 grumps.

“Horses are People Too”

Deb suggested writing about what I did on Easter. I spent Easter with 12 horses in Lincoln, MA shoveling pony poo from their stalls. I enjoyed it immensely because I like horses and I’m a weirdo. But I have a hard time imagining you all would enjoy reading about it.

“Mel Brooks and the Future of Information Technology”

My thought piece on the movie “Spaceballs”. The way in which John Candy dressed as a dog foreshadows Blockchain is downright eerie. Probably my next post. Good stuff I promise.

“Life Lessons from Heavyweight Boxing in the 1970’s”         

Wait, I already did that once before. All the same, lots of material still to be mined there. I never even got to Ali vs. Frazier 3, the “Thrilla in Manila”. Stay tuned.

“Pugs Should Get Snacks More Often”

My dog suggested this idea. I keep telling him he should just get his own blog.

In summary, writing blog posts is no easy task. Wordsmithing is a tough bit of business. Also, I realize the title of this post implied that there would be learning. Did you learn anything? Probably not, I’m guessing. Another failure of my wordsmithery, dear readers. So sorry.

On second thought, maybe there is a nugget that you can take away from my misadventures. Writer’s block and the accompanying anxiety happens to all of us. Take some small solace knowing that you are not alone. Because the odds are good at that same moment you are freaking out, I too am squirming like a lunatic under the weight of my next blog post.