Coffee With David

I remember reading an article a few years ago that claimed writer’s block was an excuse for not writing. While some will claim writers block as an excuse not to write, there are other reasons for the block. This weekend I have been wrestling to hear my muse, which led me to think about what I know causes me to have writer’s block.

Frustrations of the Outside Life

Life is filled with its frustrating dramas. The last several weeks have been filled with them. Thoughts are flooded with concerns dealing with the storm of crises that prop up. Energy and time is spent correcting them, fixing the problems, tying down the lose ends. I am of course referring to the elements of life everyone must deal with—work, family, and friends. It is a delicate balancing act to maintain the relationships that are important in most cases, but when things fall out of balance then the muse’s voice cannot get through.

Frustrations of Emotions

Art –good art that makes the reader’s soul ache—comes from the soul of the writer. I won’t claim to have achieved this yet, but what I will claim is that I write from the soul. Sometimes the emotions are pleasant, others not remotely in the same galaxy as pleasant. It are these painful emotions and memories that can gag the muse. Not long ago, I wrote about how writing can be therapy. How many patients got to a therapist and right away tell the therapist what is causing them the pain? Admittedly, I have never been, but I have had plenty of friends who are psychologist social workers. All of there answers to that question has been “never!” The reason is simple, people don’t like facing pain if they don’t “have to.” When writing from that painful experience—even when you know you are fictionalizing it—can bring about writers block.

Frustrations of Instinct

Every story has a method it is to be told. Sometimes that method is not natural to you. The recent short story I wrote, “The Last Friend” was originally written from my normal distant third party voice. In that telling of a story where the Angel of Death has fallen in love with a woman and now faces having to take her life and never see her again, my method failed. I struggled with how to tell the story for months. It wasn’t until a conversation with a fellow writer that challenged me to write a story from a female point of view that the muse knocked me in the head to start writing. I wrote the story in a first person narrative, changing prospective between the Angel and the woman. It is not a style I was use to, but it flowed—the writers block was broken. At this time I do not know if the story will be published, but it did show me another cause of writers block

There are many reasons for writers block. Would anyone want to share their reasons?

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for up to date information about the stories, novels and blogs I write.