Well, the funny thing is that I don’t
have what to write about today; oh, and
most funny about it all is that I am going to
force myself to write about not being able to write [at all] and stuff like
that.
Well,
(again, you’ll have to get used to me now when I use this awesome word), if you
are into developing habits, or at one time or another you have had a chance to
know how habits are developed, you have probably already read somewhere (or
have been yelled at by some “expert” at a seminar as you yawned yourself away
before lunch break) that you can learn anything and come to making it part of
your character in 21 days. 21 days? Yeah, that’s how they get us all duped. You
can’t learn anything and become good at it in 21 days. (Yeah unless it is
involving food, movies or having a good time). I’ve tried it buddies. It has
never worked. (At least for me.)
Side note: I think there should also be another cliché
teaching us on how to unlearn things in such and such a number of days.
*Sigh* And they surely (whoever does this bad stuff to us good people) will get
us all derailed from the awesomeness of not knowing too much useless stuff.
Anyway,
because I have just realized that I have never learned anything in 21 days (which
is spectacular because I don’t want to be part of the crowd that qualifies such
an Ipsos Synovate thingy - they always lie to us anyway), I now embark
on justifying my point: you don’t have to learn anything in 21 days, and that
you can actually enjoy writer’s block and learn from it instead of being
stressed and brought down by it. Yes, you don’t have to be demeaned by your own
makings and unmaking(s).
Another side note: You laymen (ahem) don’t know how demeaning
it is to know that you can’t just get stuff and words and things to write about
even when you really want to, and that it has been happening to you for kinda
since your dad send you pocket money (oh, brilliant, now you get it.)
Back
to the road...
There
are quite a number of habits I have learned without even learning. There are.
Quite a lot. Really. My bandwagon of such habits consists of things like waking
up late. Come on, don’t give me that eye roll. We were never ever (ahem)
taught how to wake up late. None of us was. Did you learn it in 21 days? Naaah,
I don’t think so. You didn’t have to.
Okay,
the smart ones amongst us may now be having an argument at this point and may
be having an avalanche towards telling me, “Those ‘experts’ are actually
talking about good habits, Morris!” Oh, good. Great. Well and good, I have a
surprise for you. My bandwagon has got good habits too. Check this one out: we
have learned how to avoid and deal with criticism in so many ways, and it did
not take 21 days. We keep learning and unlearning it. This is life - learning and
unlearning habits.
Habits
like reading our Bibles have been developed over differing periods of time.
Other bad but unprecedented habits include writer’s block, which only requires
one or two occasions and you are an expert at it (and the period of learning it
is never actually 21 days.) Habits like believing in something (having Faith)
and loving people unconditionally take a much longer time to learn and adopt to
(ask Thomas and married people about it). Others like unfaithfulness and
infidelity can occur in milliseconds.
So
what am I trying to say? I am saying that each one of us has a way and a period
within which we may study, learn and adopt to a given habit. We do it
differently for different habits.
The
habit we are trying to deal with here is writer’s block (oh, actually, some may
say that it is a condition). We learn it over time, get used to it and
eventually make it part of us. It doesn’t just occur. We nurture and cultivate
it (just as we do with other good or bad habits) over a given period of time.
...........................................................
The
thing about writing that is also common with other arts is that it takes time
for you to develop your style - your own genre so to say - in any piece of art.
As long as you are not trying to duplicate someone else’s style, you remain
relevant; but if you are trying to wear another person’s shoes, know that that
is the beginning of your fall. We can never fit in anyone else’s shoes, no
matter how big or small.
Writer’s
block is a result of many things, but the main point is this: you are a writer,
and you either don’t have what to write about so you are now scared of "the blank page" or you don’t feel like writing
[at all]. (And this applies to all artists, by the way.)
So
how do we deal with it?
On
a light note, you can overcome it through the following ways (oh you can);
1. Visiting your blog or that folder you save your write-outs in
somewhere on your laptop or phone or tablet, staring at the awesome posts you
have already posted, sighing, counting them again, sighing a second time, closing
the folder and congratulating yourself: “Yaaay,
I am a ninja...!!” It won’t change a thing but it may help. Really.
2. Get to Google and type “How to overcome writer’s block in
21 days...” After that, stare at the search results, click on a few links,
click back, re-read an article, smile about it, do a few Opera or Chrome
keyboard shortcuts just to prove to and remind your awesome self that you
have acquired ninja status and go on with your miserable writing-less
life. Yes, go on with your life, buddy. We won’t judge you. After all, the pen,
the keyboard, the screen, the energy, the brain, the sacrifice to write and so
forth and so on are all yours. We won’t judge you, I promise.
3. Post to your social media platforms something like this: “I
need to do something about not writing... It’s been a long time” and wait
for the ooooooohhhs and aaaaaaahhs that arise. Argue with friends
a little to why you are not writing and then just disappear from the comments.
You are the bause, remember, you are the bause.
4. Mourn about it until you fall asleep or until you become
hungry and eat it away. Of course you’ll add weight due to binge eating. And of
course that’s another bad habit you’re slowly developing...
Or,
on a serious note, you can do the following;
1. Try to understand when and why you stopped writing.
Is it a problem you can overcome or do
something about? Then do it. Is it a problem with a change of environment and
as a result you are still trying to acclimatize or is it a change of friends
and the work-space? Inspiration differs depending with our environments,
achievements and the challenges we encounter along the way. These things may be happening to us or to the people around us. I may stop
writing or my style of writing may switch swiftly from one to another depending
on people around me and the things I see, touch, smell, think about, feel, like
and love from moment to moment and day to day: was I previously single? Am I
still single? Am I from a broken relationship? Have we clashed with God or are
we in good terms? Am I married? Do I now have kids e.t.c. These things redefine
art. A lot. And writing is not a exception.
2. Ask your writing friends about how they overcome the block.
Birds of the same feather flop
together (Experts et al), remember? At a personal level, I deal with
mine by doing exactly what I am doing today... Writing about it. But best of
all, I have so many unfinished writing mini-projects and I always use one or
two of them to get me back up again. Once I contribute to a certain topic I was
addressing somewhere in the underground, everything else (my thought process,
my grasp for inspiration and my passion) just falls in place. Someone else may
give you a point or two to help you pick yourself up again.
3. Stop believing that lie that you can undo the block in
21 days.
This is not some sort of theory, my
friend. Writing is serious business, so if you don’t want to do it (or you
don’t feel thrilled doing it), it will take you 21 years to get anything done.
Yes, 21 years or even more. Mark my words. (I actually have a certain writing project
that has stayed untouched for four years... and I am still counting...) Yeah,
this thing is real.
4. Take advantage of modern technology.
Own a notebook (paper, if you are all
conventional and stuff), a phone with a note-taking app, a tablet or a laptop
with note-taking apps that sync across all platforms
(phone-tablet-laptop/desktop). This way, you can start writing something on one
platform and finish it off elsewhere once you get the time and opportunity.
What mostly contributes to our failure to write - that is if we have not befriended
technology - is when an idea chips in and we don’t note it down, or we note it on
a piece of paper which gets lost, gets torn or gets rained on thus losing information
and leaving us with an overwhelming sense of helplessness.
5. Stop wanting to be like someone else.
Admire people’s work, but stick to
your own style. Read a lot yeah, but don’t duplicate someone’s writing style
into your own. You are prone to fail if you do so. The weird thing about art is
that counterfeits don’t last long, so stop being one. Yes, counterfeits,
copy-cats and wannabes never bounce back after a burnout or after the block creeps
in.
6. Manage your time well.
There is always time to write and
there is always time to rehearse. Always. If you are passionate about it, you
will always find time. You only need three hours (at most) to write something
exponential i.e. you write the whole unedited script of three pages (of a Word document
of course) in 1 hour, edit it in the next 30 minutes, go walk for 20 minutes to
clear up your head, come back and review it anew for 40 minutes or so before
posting it or stacking it on top of other writings your already have. You can
spread the 3 hours across a week by getting to write at least 30 minutes a day.
You don’t need 21 days, you just need 30 minutes per day for a lifetime.
7. Don’t judge yourself so harshly when you aren’t able to write
for a while, but congratulate yourself when you do.
You do this for a while and you come
to realize that there is nothing that works better in art than self-motivation.
Motivate yourself to achievement or die seeking for compliments from ghosts.
:-)
8. Don’t write nothing if you have nothing to write.
It is better you shut up and write nothing
than fill up people’s faces and minds with unrefined art. There is nothing as
bad as everyone wondering, “Oh Morris, who really forced you to write that?” Or
“You could have prepared more, man. We’d appreciate more if you did so!!”
Preparation and research are key to perfecting any gift or talent, so
thoroughly work on them before spreading your block woes to everyone
else around you.
9. You don’t have to figure out the beginning to the end of what
you want to write about - nobody does that all the time.
You just have to see the beginning, a
little of the middle (the body) and some part of the end of the work of art. If
you wait to see the whole thing before embarking on writing, you may actually
end up seeing nothing hence write nothing.
10. Never
procrastinate your writing time. Ever.
Writing, like every other art,
requires discipline and consistency in order to achieve great (not just good)
results. Once you break this order of things, you are likely to fall off really
fast. (Ask me about it.)
11. Don’t restrict
yourself to one style of writing.
Art, unlike science, is always
exploratory and changing. The Shakespearean style of writing can e revived
today if we choose to. We can write the same things in many different ways... And
as I always say, “Writers and movie-makers are gods...”, there is nothing
that a writer can’t possibly do to his/her style or the very things they
address in their works of art. So go on and make yourself a god with
your work being your creation...
Until
next time,
Bonface Morris.
