Overcoming Writer's Block - When Less Is More
Where is it? I don't feel it this morning. I've been sitting here with my coffee and I don't feel very creative today. Instead of the usual parade of writing ideas that wander through my mind, I find myself thinking that I missed the parade. I think I have writer's block.
Being someone who is mostly driven by emotion, it is more difficult for me to write when I am not fueled by some basic human response to love, pain, reflection, humor, or any one of the other dozens of emotions. In other words, I write more easily when I am inspired by some aspect of the human condition.
Lately, some of my own writing has bugged me a bit. It has been rather reflective and since I am still trying to find my niche, I have been concerned that I might be perceived as morose or depressing. If there is one thing I have perfected, it is the art of self-examination. I have looked at myself from every perceivable angle and guess what I found? I am a genuine, certifiable human being. Yep, I've got a lot of good traits and some bad ones too. I do some things well and some, well, not well at all.
Can you guess where I am going?
Less Is More! It Really Is.
Since I was lacking in inspiration this morning, I lapsed into self-examination and found myself staring at the wall in front of my monitor which contains...nothing at all. That's right, I've been sitting here for a while now, sipping my coffee, looking at nothing, and thinking about...almost everything.
Don't you think it's healthy sometimes to just "be"? We don't do it often enough; giving ourselves permission to let our mind drift from place to place, face to face, and everywhere in between? Staring at this wall today, I found myself thinking about the seasons; how nature transitions from one to the other. Sometimes it is a gentle transition with one season exiting and another entering with almost no notice at all. And then, as in all things, the opposite occurs. One season exits with a forceful vengeance and on the other side of it, another emerges.
This blank wall, in it's egg-shell colored emptiness, became the backdrop for a new awareness today. Writing too, can be seasonal. Sometimes we are hot and humid with passion for a topic and then our season changes. For a time, we may be reflective, gently changing the colors of our landscape to one of memories of unrequited love, fences that need mending, bridges built, or even the most easily forgotten - gratitude. Could it be that winter comes too, to our creative processes, when concepts lay dormant awaiting for life to provide the final piece for our inspiration to awaken? When winter ends, spring begins and the warm sunshine and gentle rains bring forth new life to all the things our passions are made of.
It's ironic, isn't it? My inspiration for today's writing was...well, nothing and I discovered quite clearly that sometimes, less is more.
© 2012 Linda Crist, All rights reserved.
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