Tuesday, June 21, 2011

A Battle with Writers Block

Written By JVCXV 

And just like that his pen stopped.  Was his story finished?  Not even close.  Those words, sentences and paragraphs which were flowing from him like a fast moving river seconds earlier, had now dried up like a desert.  At first, he figured it was momentary, like a train pulling into a station, stopping briefly before resuming its journey.  However, as the time went on, that theory was proving not to be the case.  Minutes passed and he was left both perplexed and paralyzed, with pen in one hand, head in the other and the notebook staring up at him with its  incomplete page.

That blank wanting space after his last word was bugging him and the longer he looked at it, the more it felt like the notebook was mocking his new ailment.  He stared at the notebook's thin gray ruled line and was reminded of the many stories the past pages contained.  This new revelation gave him the idea to look back at his prior works, hoping to recapture that winning formula he had possessed not too long ago.

Page after page he turned expecting that a small story or a useful note would reignite that creative flame. However, it was all in vain.  Now  he was staring at the the front of the book.  He noticed the many fingerprints that had accumulated on its smooth brown cover.  Fingerprints and color aside, the cover itself was without any differentiating design.  It was blank, which was now ironic given his current creative writing state.

As the minutes became hours, genuine concern started to build.  The once tiny mental whisper of, “What if I can't finish this?” had become more prevalent. With his confidence dwindling and the walls in his house seemingly closing in on him, he decided to grab his notebook and pen and head out to a local nature trail.

Being encircled by the magnificence of mother nature, he located one of the few signs of civilization, a park bench, and took a seat.  After taking in some of the sights, he decided he was ready for round two with his bout of writers block.  He took out his pen and notebook out of his pocket, opened said book to the incomplete page, and waited.  More time pass and again nothing.

Discouraged but not yet defeated, he decided to tackle this problem from a different angle.  Up to this point he had been purely focused on this one single story and its completion. Turning the page of his notebook to a completely blank sheet, he figured maybe a new story could shatter this writers block he was suffering with.  Of course with this idea arouse another very obvious question.

“What do I write about?”

Initially this was quite a tough question to answer.  However, sometimes the hardest questions have the most simplest of answers.  He decided that he would write about the thing that was on his mind the most, his current case of writers block.

He started by describing what had occurred hours earlier and then proceed to elaborate about his predicament.  As he did, he started to find that the words were returning and were slowly forming sentences. Next would be the sentences, as they would be flowing to form those precious paragraphs.  He was on a roll now and that writing blockage was becoming a distant memory.

An hour later that story was done. As he stared down at the notebook, amazed by the transformation that had just taken place, he was struck with the idea he had been waiting for.  He turned back to that incomplete page and continued writing like nothing had happened and he had never stopped.  

Copyright 06/11/2011

9 comments:

Unknown said...

@ JVCXV

Sir, this is a wonderful piece of work.The pristine flow of this essay is simply beautiful. I am extremely sorry for turning up so late here, but since I was travelling, I could not comment here as soon as I would have loved. Anyway, let me welcome you to TPWS, from our - the reader's end :)

Anonymous said...

JVCXV said...

Appreciate the comment and the welcome Chinmay. No apologies or explanations are required, I'm just happy you enjoyed it. I decided to try to dust the pen off and do something a little different than what I've done before. Anyways, hope all is well and thanks again.

AkaProfessorM said...

Welcome to the ranks of the Prowl'ers JVCXV! Your story definitely qualifies as a specimen of quality writing that both educates and entertains our fine readership!

Chinmay has expressed the sentiment that most of our writers feel at having your work take it's rightful place here! Thanks JVCXV!
Regards Mike AKA the Professor ;D

Anonymous said...

JVCXV said...

Thanks Professor for the welcome and the far too kind words of praise. I wanted to post something on here that had a writing theme, but I was having trouble working out the specifics. Then this idea came to mind, and the rest, as they say, is history. :)

Anonymous said...

Angel aka the Philosopher said...

This is a wonderful post and illustrates how good writing ideas can come out, even when you think
you have "Writer's Block".

I'd like to also extend a warm welcome to you on this site and hope that you guest write for us more of these gems in the future. :)......

Regards,
Angel aka the Philosopher

Anonymous said...

JVCXV said...

Thanks Angel for the kind words. Your words of support, along with Professor's and Chinmay's are much appreciated. This was a very positive experience that I would be more than happy doing again in the future.

Iam D Real Deal yo said...

Quite an intelligent and good read Jay. Glad to read your work after a while and nice to see you on TPWS. Thanks for this post. :-)

Iam D Real Deal yo said...

I would also like to add that the technique of making an article out of writers block by itself is quite a novel approach, thanks for the enlightenment. :D

Anonymous said...

JVCXV said...

Thanks Deal for reading, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. As for the idea, I wanted to contribute a piece on this site that people who write could relate to.

Anyways, take care and thanks again for the kind words. :)