Saturday, April 25, 2009

Writer's Bloc

There comes a time when you look into your writing pad (or your computer) and it just hits you: you can't write.

It either one of two things:
1) your mind is as blank as the paper (or screen) infront of you; or
2) you are in a state of overload and cannot achieve the necessary focus to articulate whatever you are currently thinking / feeling / imagining.

Either way, the result is the same: you cannot, for the life of you, write. It's as if the world will shatter and your brain will implode (for the 1st reason, explode for the 2nd reason). You feel like you are forcing your own blood to travel to your fingertips and flow through your pen (or keyboard) just so you can express a coherent thought.

But still, you cannot write. And the aggravation of it all kills you and boils you from inside-out. You stare at your writing implements and it's enough to burn a hole right through it. Staring fixedly at that blank sheet, that blank page, that blank screen... and inwardly, at that blank mind.

But your mind is not blank, is it? You are lucid, you are imaginative, its just that you are incoherent. It's just that you are inarticulate. It's just that piece of paper staring right back at you, mocking you for your momentary show of weakness. It's just that pen laughing at your inability to guide it to the canvass of your dreams. It's just that screen placating you for your inadequacies of writing earth-shattering pieces of literature that you know you are destined to write.

And in the back of your mind you hear the roaring laughter of those unnamabe entities denying you of your god-given right to that Palanca Award, the Nobel Prize even.

You hyperventilate. You feel the tears forcing their way out of your eyelids and threaten to make way for a great flood of pent-up emotion that was supposed to be your ticket to monumental poetry, to glorious novels, to scintillating essays.

But still you can't write.

What do you do?

05Apr2004 5.00p
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I'm feeling this way again.  And I am envious of my past self to have articulated this, as I don't think the current me possess this kind of verbal acumen.  Damn...

9 comments:

  1. when i cant write, i watch dvds. :) relak. habi lang naten to. :)ba

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  2. @ Gentle: For someone as high-strung as myself, relaxing is easier said than done. You do know that, Gentle, do you? Hehehe

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  3. try this whenever you get of a fit of Writer's Block: write anything on the blank paper (or type anything on the blank screen): disparate words, incoherent sentences, anything. once you're writing something, hearing the scratch of pen against paper, or your fingers clicking on the keyboard, you'll get going. it works for me, at least. :)

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  4. Wow.

    Yes, I am not coherent. Or probably just my mind in a panic state when it's crowded with so many thoughts..

    I'd have to agree with Vitor Gregor, yes, I do that sometimes.. Kahit na anung pumasok sa utak ko, I jot down, then it'll simply flow to your hands and unnoticeably you've already written a story, or anything from that single thought..

    Nakakinis lang kung minsan talagang sa sobrang dami di mo alam uunahin at isusulat mo.. Sobrang naka-relate ako dito. Parang gustong kumawala ng mga nasa utak mo pero di mo alam kung paanu uumpisahan.. Nakakainis! Hahaha!

    Pag minsan nga nakaharap akosa pC para isulat yung kanina pa naglalaro sa utak ko but i'll end up writing a diffrent thing from what I'm suppose to write, darn.

    Sensya na, DinakoMAUBUSAN.. lolz

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  5. it really happens. in those cases, i make sure that i have enough travel magazines on my side to cheer up myself and be inspired to post.

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  6. Thnx for the add! and well wen i can't write, i dont write. Instead, I do other productive stuff. Each of us have a certain time of the day where we write best. It's our job to find out what that time is so that we'll be better at knowing wen to write. hehehe . . .

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  7. @ Victor: Hmmm... I think I've tried that before, but the gramatically incorrect sentences got to me, and I ended up not writing, and disappointed at myself. haha!

    @ Dylan: Yeah, nakakainis talaga na nag-uunahan sa utak mo yung mga bagay bagay, to the point na masakit na sa ulo ang mag-isip. Ang ending, wala kang output.

    @ Dong: Hmmm... Magazines might do the trick. My novels are powerless kasi to ease the mental block, dahil hindi rin ako makapag-concentrate sa pagbabasa.

    @ Millionnaire: Masochist lang siguro talaga ako. Even when I'm doing something else, at the back of my mind, there is this nagging thought that I wasn't able to accomplish something as simple as writing. hehe

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  8. wow...i understand why you envy your past self--because that post was impeccable! and it perfectly described the emotions that run through someone suffering a writer's bloc...

    but i think it's not too late. with the right circumstances, you could still improve and beat your past self in terms of writing...

    I wish you well... :D

    ---

    I agree! Hehehe! Age is just a state of mind! Hehehe! (I should tell this to my grandmother…:P)

    Sinabi mo pa. lalo na ngayon, maulan, malamig, masarap matulog! Hehehe!

    Yeah. Rowling figured everything out. Sectumsempra! Ahehe!

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  9. @ Lucas: Thanks, Lucas, for the morale boost! Yeah, sana nga makasulat ulit ako as fluid as this old post of mine. Hopefully, the right circumstance would present itself.

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