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Writer’s Block By Mary Garden
For a long period in my life (I hate to admit it, but it lasted about ten years) I had writer’s block.
In the back of my mind was the constant hankering, almost yearning, to write but something always stopped me in my tracks. Or if I did find my way to put a pen to paper or finger on a keyboard I’d give up after a few minutes. I’d find other things to do: gardening, talking on the phone, “Oprah,” coffee at a local café, even shopping. Anything but writing.
My biggest excuse to others and myself was that I had writer’s block, as if it was some kind of illness: something that can’t be overcome except when the time is right. I was always hoping that maybe my muse would just pop “extraordinary” words into my brain and I would be compelled to scribble them down. I was waiting for a miracle.
I even attended a session on writer’s block at a writing workshop. We were asked to visualize and imagine various things: looking through a window at a stream trickling by; a wise old man with long white hair sitting near it (our muse perhaps). When we emerged from our trance-like states (presumably with our blocks dislodged) we were told to scribble frantically the first things that came to mind. I’m thankful there was no compulsion to read out loud what was written. Mine went into the rubbish bin on the way out.
What I really needed was a much stronger form of “kick-start” than manifesting or waiting for my muse.
Then my son, fed up with hearing me complain and whine about my “illness,” gave me a present for Christmas, Stephen King’s On Writing. Stephen King. Right. As if I wanted to write horror stories. I was in for a big surprise. Reading King’s book was like being cornered, and being forced to have a long, drawn out mental enema. (The ensuing stuff being all my excuses.) The simple theme of this remarkable book is if you really want to write, then shut yourself in a room, close the door, and WRITE. If you don’t want to write, do something else. It’s as simple as that.
I deleted all the games from my computer, and each morning pulled the phone plug out of the wall. I even stuck a notice on my door, “Writing in progress, do NOT disturb.” (At that time I was living in an intentional community where most people think it is their right, given the nature of the place, to walk in at any time of the day and even night!)
But for the next few weeks I spent long periods just staring at my computer screen, and getting up and having yet another cup of coffee or tea. My daughter (a university student) suggested that if I was going to write articles (which was my plan) then perhaps I should do a university course. “You’ve got to be trained Mum,” she said. “You just can’t sit down, write an article, and expect it to be published.” So as another diversion to replace computer games, I spent days trawling the Internet-- university websites, courses on journalism and non-fiction writing. There was so much to choose from.
Did I really want to go back to university after thirty years? Wasn’t there an easier way? What did Stephen King say again? “You don’t need writing classes or seminars… writing-class discussions can often be intellectually stimulating and great fun, but they also often stray far a field from the actual nuts-and-bolts business of writing.”
I started slowly. Something that had irked me for some years was the ban on keeping dogs and cats as pets in most alternative communities. That’s what I’d write about. I began to collect information via the Internet, books, and magazines and did some interviews by e-mail.
Then someone said something that really angered me. A neighbor commented that even though my two children may seem okay now, in the long run they were sure to have been damaged because I had been divorced. I had already been disturbed by some comments in the press made by Australia's Archbishop Pell and government minister Tony Abbott on the harm and dangers of divorce. Hadn’t they considered the impact of such sweeping generalizations on the children of divorce themselves? What about toxic marriages? I decided to put my article on dogs, cats, and eco-villages on hold and first write about the myths of divorce.
I didn’t really know quite what I was doing. I just wrote and wrote and wrote, and did lots of research and when I had this big pile of words and information began chipping away at it. Gradually a form emerged. My heart leapt with joy. It was like creating a sculpture. This is the magic that Stephen King talks about. A part of me knew it wasn’t going to be all hard work! How had I forgotten? Was it all self-doubt? Mind you, the end bits-- the polishing, including editing and tidying up the grammar-- took some time, and the Australian Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers came in very handy.
My first feature article of almost 3,000 words was published in August 2002 in the Friday Review section of The Australian Financial Review. They titled it “Alarmist Tales Divorced from Reality: Mary Garden Challenges the Damaging Myths About Ending a Marriage.”
I was lucky. Earlier I had purchased a copy of The Australian Writer’s Marketplace and when I felt my “masterpiece” was finished, sent it blind by e-mail as an attachment to scores of publications without even reading their submission guidelines. (Aspiring writers: Please don’t do that. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and inconsiderate.) For weeks no response or feedback at all except from Sydney's The Age newspaper with a note that it was well-written but they had just run a piece on divorce and good luck trying to place it. That quieted my inner critic who had begun piping up about how hopeless I was and how I didn’t know to write.
A month later, an e-mail of acceptance from The AFR. (Weeks later I read in their guidelines: Do not send attachments! I figured it must have been my unusual subject heading, “Divorce: an Escape from Toxic Marriages,” that got my foot in the door that time!) I let out one of the loudest screams in my life, danced around the floor, leapt into the air, and ran out onto the veranda shrieking, “Yes, yes, I’ve done it! Yippee!” It took me days to come down to earth. The morning of its publication (after I had collected 25 pre-ordered copies of the paper from the local news agency) I put on a big champagne breakfast at my house, with chocolate coated strawberries, caviar and cheese crackers, etc., and invited the entire community.
This success was quickly followed by six different articles for various magazines (including some overseas publications) on the dog and cat issue, and two more on divorce. Things I felt passionately about. So I was now on my way, extremely happy, and very grateful to Mr. King.
And also grateful for my anger, a wonderful emotion to get things moving when one is stuck. It was anger more than anything else that had set me off, roused me into productivity and creativity. A great motivator if one is stuck for something to write about.
I’m now convinced that my “block” was due to two overlapping factors: laziness and lack of discipline. Fuelling these two things is my inner critic who loves to tell me, “You can’t write,” “You’re hopeless,” and “You’ll make a fool of yourself.” Inner critics try to protect us from being shamed or humiliated so in the beginning they need reassuring more than anything else. These days I just tell mine to bugger off!
Mary Garden is
the author of The Serpent Rising: a Journey of Spiritual Seduction (Sid
Harta Publishers, 2003), a memoir based on her experiences with various gurus in
India during the 1970's. Visit her website
http://www.marygarden.net or e-mail her at
marygarden@bigpond.com.
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