Once around the Writer's Block
Let's have a block party!
Salutations to those of you who fingerprint keyboards until the letters rub off!
One of my top-responders made a great comment on my last newsletter and it inspired some thought…
“…getting words on a page is a triumph no matter what they are, and shows character, and that this is different than just having a blank screen. I think one of your authors said one time, that if you have writer's block, just choose not to write good books. Just write badly. At least you're writing.”
He had asked me in the beginning of the comment whether I had writer’s block or was simply struggling. It’s a fascinating question because what is Writer’s Block?
Merriam Webster: a psychological inhibition preventing a writer from proceeding with a piece.
Writers.com: wanting to write and not writing.
and my personal favorite:
Cambridge Dictionary: the condition of being unable to create a piece of written work because something in your mind prevents you from doing it.
“Something in your mind” is so nebulous and creepy!
Wikipedia adds that it is “a non-medical condition, primarily associated with writing…” (that cracked me up—using a term in its own definition is a no-no called a circular definition…but also “primarily?” In what case can writer’s block NOT be associated with writing?)
Anyway - I wonder how many writers produce a lot of terrific work by being unable to work on the one piece they most long to be working on. I feel that this is a special kind of writer’s block that should have its own term. I’m ready for your neologisms!
Writing News:
Newest thing is of course the exciting UPCOMING READING! I get 20 minutes of stage time and will read an entire short story beginning to end! THIS TUESDAY!
Yes! in Brooklyn! In Person! Near Subways! At Sunset! There’s not even an RSVP needed. How utterly easy is this? And it’s not just me - there are four of us reading!
Also this lovely interview is up on Canvas Rebel. Read it here.
And also thanks for all your feedback (mostly on Linked In) on my prize-winning short essay. In case you didn’t read it, here it is again.
Last week’s Pen Parentis Literary Salon featuring Emily Raboteau, Sarah Langan and Matthew Lawrence Garcia was terrific, and playback will be edited soon - the volunteer who edits our final playback is in Cannes!
I have new news! I was selected as a panelist for the SFWA Nebula Conference - I would have liked to travel to Pasadena for this, but instead I will be online. Here’s the conference info - if you’re into Science Fiction, give it a go! (I think you have to be a SFWA member to attend though.) My panel is at 9am PT (aka noon ET) online on Saturday, June 9. I’m speaking about using older characters as protagonists in fiction. Ava Kelly moderates R.S.A. Garcia, Barbara Krasnoff, Carol Gyzander and me. I’m thrilled.
This week I watched the movie IF (it is terrible - I’m trying to write my thoughts on it and keep finding myself shouting things like “I can’t believe it” and “Honestly what were they thinking?”) This movie is of the new “hospital patient’s caregiver’s memoir” genre along with the Broadway plays Brooklyn Laundry and Mary Jane (which I just saw and I’ll spare you my thoughts on this one, but will only tell you that if you do go to see it, make sure to schedule at least two hours and many drinks for your post-show discussion and mutual counseling session). I also saw the new production of Bizet’s opera Carmen at the Met. It was inexplicably staged in a Texas prison. I guess so that the set designer could put three pickups, one sportscar and a semi truck simultaneously on the Met’s stage? I mean, it did show the scale of the thing, I guess. And the open fire reminded me of the directing class I took with the legendary Robert Wilson. He shrugged off his genius and said “just put real water, fire, dirt, or a live animal on the stage. People won’t be able to get enough of it.”
Mary Jane has a live goldfish. It is as unrelated to the plot of that play as the entire script of IF is to any shaped narrative whatsoever, but it is alive and on stage so we look at it.
Random Final Thought:
Lest you think I was avoiding the question of whether I have writer’s block….
I will say no. I am writing many things. This blog, several grants, and a handful of new short stories. Maybe even a farce! (I have a friend who wants to co-write a play. I’m thinking about it) I’ve also been toying with poetry again. I am eager, however, to get back to work on a novel. Actually eager! I have not returned to my manuscript-in-progress since London, because I fear doing a bad job if I rush into it.
It is a longer piece and I need the mental energy to hold it in my mind at once for more than a few seconds—am waiting until I have a little more free time.
And good news, fans: copious free time is coming soon, with the inevitability of the giant marble chasing Indiana Jones.
Come see me read on Tuesday!
Great picture-my keyboard is missing a few letters...