Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Writer's Sludge

Bloody fiery pirate balls, I'm stuck in a sludge.

Writer's block is a misnomer for what a block really is. It's more like a sludge, a slurry of procrastination, depression, apathy, and frustration that swirls around your ankles and yanks you down. It happens every so often, when I'm hung up on something, usually in real life, I get stuck in the sludge. I can barley sit down at a computer without panic bubbling in my guts.
My particular sludge is usually born from fear. One of those vicious circle kind of fears: afraid I can't make a living as a writer, which I can't do unless I write. I'm stuck, it's hard to breath, I look at my family, I need to work harder, my pitiful side income is not enough, but the words won't come. I need to finish editing my novel, I need to work on my sci-fi blog, I should try to work on that romance I've been tinkering with. All those shoulda, woulda, couldas building up until they overwhelm you.
When those feelings come calling, the only thing you can do is find a way to keep writing around them. In the past, during the "doomy gloomy days" I couldn't get past it, I would stop writing for months at a time. Now, I blog, for myself, for the three people who stumble across it and go "I'm not alone".
Everyone struggles at some point, the trick is to find a way to keep going. You can't just sit in the Sludge and wait for it melt away, you have to pull your ass out of the muck as fast as you can, even if you lose your shoes doing it. Write, rant, rave about your sludge, write utter drivel, you can always throw it out later, but sometimes when you force out the drivel, something magical can come out with it. It could be just one sentence, or an idea, a fragment, but if you can salvage anything, then you have expunged yourself from the sludge.
Some days you crawl, some days you fly.

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