On Writers' Block.......

I haven’t blogged for a number of months because I haven’t written anything for a couple of months. I always thought writer’s block was a myth – something procrastinating writers used to justify their lack of output. Well it’s no myth. My words abandoned me last November and I have been so lonely without them. I blamed my new medication, thinking it had dulled my senses and rendered me incapable of opening myself up to the truth that comes when I am writing well. I worried that I might never write again.

           

But Oh Joy! The creativity started to flow again recently! And I am swimming with it - caught in its current, buoyed up and perfectly safe. I cannot force this to happen. It has a life of its own. I often sit looking at a blinking cursor or contemplate a white page waiting until the first sentence comes. There are many false starts but when the work is going well my fingers can hardly keep up with the words that spill onto the page. The marshalling of them into a coherent whole will come later, much later - on the seventh or eight draft. But for now I just write. And write and write and write.

This piece was written today, February 3^rd in St Maur’s Church in Rush in North County Dublin. The church has been converted into a library and is a beautiful space to work in. There is just the right amount of noise in it as librarians and borrowers amble through their day. When  I lift my head from the screen I can look at beautiful wood, a vaulted ceiling or magnificent stained glass windows. It is incredibly energising. The wind was high and  howling around the outside of the church today suiting a piece I was working on that needed that energy. It fed the writing, I could barely keep up with it. It is an amazing feeling. Pray God it doesn’t desert me for too long ever again