What I've learned about writing this week...

WRITERS’ BLOCK, WRITERS’ SCHMOCK…

As anyone on my Masters course will be able to tell you (I’ve been whining about it for a week on the forums), I’ve had a flu-type virus for the past week and a half.  I assure you it isn’t corona-virus – I don’t want my village to be shut off from the rest of the world like Eyam in the days of the Black Death!

Anyway, the virus hasn’t been as bad as actual flu, but it has left me with a weirdly debilitating fatigue, a bit like mild depression, a bit like a flare-up of fibromyalgia.  I am hurting everywhere, particularly round my ribs, and I feel both physically and mentally exhausted.  Now, those who know me will know that I’m never exactly a dynamo at the best of times, but even by my standards my current lethargy is alarming.  I mean, I’m sleeping around twelve hours at night and still falling asleep watching TV (I nodded off while typing yesterday!).  I am having to psyche myself up to do even simple tasks, like opening my birthday cards.

Anyway, last week was the deadline for the latest piece of coursework for the Masters course, and since then I have been unable to write anything much at all.  I have to come up with a story in response to February’s Write Club monthly prompt exercise, and I have several stories and poems half-written or which I need to write as part of the MA course, and I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment.  So I should just get on with it, yes?

But I have ‘writers’ block’, a thing I didn’t wholly believe in until now. I can’t think of any ideas. My brain seems to have nodded off.  My skull is full of dishwater sloshing around like on the washing machine’s rinse cycle, and I just can’t see the thread of an idea among all the dirty soap suds.  I have tried to write bits of unfinished stories, but as soon as I begin, I find myself losing interest and feeling sleepy.

I know this is some sort of post-viral crap that will wear off, but it is highly frustrating.  I’ve tried my usual ‘remedies’ of writing letters to people (yes, I still write actual letters to people – I have three regular correspondents), trying to give feedback to other writers, and forcing myself to write this blog.  But I find myself reading other people’s work and being utterly unable to make any useful suggestions for how it could be improved.  And I’ve managed one paragraph of one letter before I just found myself wanting to go back to bed.  I feel like I’m wading through treacle just writing this. #

So, here is my conclusion:  SOMETIMES YOU JUST CAN’T WRITE, SO DON’T TRY. Obviously, in general, I would advise people to keep on writing something, however insignificant, when faced with ‘Writers’ block’ as it seems to be the way out of it under normal circumstances.  But if you’re experiencing exhaustion due to physical stress, or the after-effects of an illness, or general fatigue due to not being very fit, or you are slipping into depression, let yourself off the hook.  Sometimes, just NOT WRITING for a few days can work wonders. 

Sometimes you just have to listen to your body and do what it tells you,

Happy writing!😀