November 11, 2024
This post is part of my 30in30 challenge, where I write 30 minutes every day for 30 working days. Due to my limited time for this challenge, the content will be only very lightly researched and edited. The idea is to just write. Find my voice, and find the courage to publish. To follow my curiosity wherever it may take me.
Today begins the second week of my 30in30 experiment. I did surprisingly well last week. I didn't struggle. I had something to write about, and the content came easily to me. Suspiciously easy, if you ask me.
And so I begin week two of 30in30. This week I will tighten up the rules. If there is one thing I could have done better last week, it was sticking to the 30-minute limit. The writing took me closer to an hour by the end of last week. There is nothing wrong with taking longer to write; at the end of the day, this experiment is about writing and publishing more, but 30 minutes is just right to put something quick together without having the time and space to do proper research. But the longer I take to write, the more pressure I feel to have all my bases covered, my facts researched, and my sources confirmed. And this is not what this experiment is about.
So, 30 minutes it is.
Today, I wanted to write about writer's block. The blank page syndrome. I have often wondered how other writers, whether writers of prose or code, deal with their writer's block. How do they get unblocked?
Terry Pratchett writes about his creative thought process in the A slip of the keyboard book. Throughout his day, he seems to stare at the screen a lot.
Get up, have breakfast, switch on word processor, stare at screen. Stare at screen some more. Carry on staring at screen.
As he stares at the screen a whole lot, but he also thinks about things. He lets his mind wander and gets distracted. One may wonder how he gets any work done!
Further down in the chapter, he says:
Sitting in front of a keyboard and a screen is work. Thousands of offices operate on this very principle. Stare at screen.
It's comforting to hear that when it comes to my creative thought process, I might not be that different from Terry Pratchett. Because I also stare at screen a whole lot.
Stephen King said:
The scariest moment is always just before you start.
And so I throw words and half-thought-out sentences on the page. Quotes, if I have any. And then I fill in between the lines. Find the common thread and see if there is a story in there, somewhere.
Sometimes, my writing isn't good. I can't find the story. Things just don't flow well and my vocabulary is basic, as if my English decided to take a little break. But at those times, I turn to another author, Sylvia Plath:
Every day, writing. No matter how bad. Something will come.
Trust the process. Something will come.