Definition and Examples of Writers Block

Definition and Examples of Writers Block    Writers block is a condition in which a skilled writer with the desire to write finds herself unable to write. The expression writers block was coined and popularized by American psychoanalyst Edmund Bergler in the 1940s.In other ages and cultures, says Alice Flaherty in The Midnight Disease, writers were not thought to be blocked but straightforwardly dried up. One literary critic points out that the concept of writers block is peculiarly American in its optimism that we all have creativity just waiting to be unlocked.See Examples and Observations below. Also see: 12 Quick Tips for Beating Writers BlockWriters on Writing: Overcoming Writers BlockComposing My First College Essay, by Sandy KlemHow to Avoid Writing, by Robert BenchleyHow to Write 2,500 Words Before Breakfast Every DayJohn McPhees Remedy for Writers BlockRobert Pirsig on Overcoming Writers BlockA Trick for Overcoming Writers Block and Getting Into a Writing Frame of MindWriters on Writing: The Myth of Inspiration Examples and Observations You dont know what it is to stay a whole day with your head in your hands trying to squeeze your unfortunate brain so as to find a word.(Gustave Flaubert, 1866)Why is suffering a major criterion for writers block? Because someone who is not writing but not suffering does not have writers block; he or she is merely not writing. Such times may instead be fallow periods for the development of new ideas, periods Keats famously described as delicious diligent indolence.(Alice W. Flaherty, The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writers Block, and the Creative Brain. Houghton Mifflin, 2004)Although it can be triggered by any number of internal or external stimuli, the vital function that writers block performs during the creative process remains constant: inability to write means that the unconscious self is vetoing the program demanded by the conscious ego.(Victoria Nelson, On Writers Block. Houghton Mifflin, 1993)I think writers block is simply the dread that you are going to write som ething horrible.(Roy Blount, Jr.) William Staffords Remedy for Writers BlockI believe that the so-called writing block is a product of some kind of disproportion between your standards and your performance. . . .Well, I have a formula for this that may just be a gimmicky way of explaining it. Anyway, it goes like this: one should lower his standards until there is no felt threshold to go over in writing. It’s easy to write. You just shouldn’t have standards that inhibit you from writing.(William Stafford, Writing the Australian Crawl. University of Michigan Press, 1978) Eminem on Writers BlockFallin asleep with writers block in the parking lot of McDonalds,But instead of feeling sorry for yourself do something about it.Admit you got a problem, your brain is clouded, you pouted long enough.(Eminem, Talkin 2 Myself. Recovery, 2010) Stephen King on Writers Block- There may be a stretch of weeks or months when it doesnt come at all; this is called writers block. Some writers in the throes of writers block think their muses have died, but I dont think that happens often; I think what happens is that the writers themselves sow the edges of their clearing with poison bait to keep their muses away, often without knowing they are doing it. This may explain the extraordinarily long pause between Joseph Hellers classic novel Catch-22 and the follow-up, years later. That was called Something Happened. I always thought that what happened was Mr. Heller finally cleared away the muse repellent around his particular clearing in the woods.(Stephen King, The Writing Life. The Washington Post, October 1, 2006)- [M]y son, fed up with hearing me complain and whine about my illness, gave me a present for Christmas, Stephen King’s On Writing. . . . 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.(Mary Garden, Writers Block. Absolute Write, 2007) The Trick[Y]ou dont want to face the blank page. Youll do anything to avoid writing. Youll go clean your toilet before you write. So I finally figured it out. Ive done the most writing this year because of a trick Ive figured out. . . . The trick is you gotta find something worse than writing. [Laughing] Thats it. Thats the trick.(Robert Rodriguez, quoted by Charles Ramirez Berg in The Mariachi Aesthetic Goes to Hollywood. Robert Rodriguez: Interviews, ed. by Zachary Ingle. University Press of Mississippi, 2012) The Lighter Side of Writers Block[Writing is] brutal, slogging work, comparable to coal mining, but harder. You never hear coal miners complaining about Coal Miners Block, wherein, try as they might, they simply cant bring themselves to mine another piece of coal. Whereas this kind of tragedy befalls novelists all the time, which is why so many of them are forced to quit working altogether and become university professors.(Dave Barry, Ill Mature When Im Dead. Berkley, 2010)