THE Eye has spent the last few minutes sitting and staring at what was a clean blank page on the screen. Until the typing started that is.
Anyone in the profession of writing will tell you that they have at one point or another experienced writer’s block. Ask any writer or journalist.
They can tell you what it is like, just staring at a blank page trying to squeeze out ideas so that you can type one … just one word to get the piece started.
It happens even when you have your topic and material strewn in front of you. Yet that one word to kick it all off just does not seem to appear.
Obviously, this just happened to the Eye. There was a nice little topic to address lying right in front of the Eye, with facts and figures too.
Yet the article on the nice little topic just did not happen. The first word refused to appear, despite the Eye concentrating on it for almost two hours.
So, hey, why not address the problem itself right?
Experts (Eye suppose the experts are psychologists and behaviourists – people who study people? Or then again, they could be those who have nothing better to do than to contribute to Wikipedia) define writer’s block as a condition that mainly ‘attacks’ those in the writing profession in which the author loses the ability to produce new work.
The experts also say that the extent to which writer’s block happens can vary in intensity.
It could just be a temporary thing where a writer has problems in dealing with the task at hand.
Yep, that happens to many of those who work as journalists, all the time.
Sometimes all it takes to recover from a temporary writer’s block is a nice tall glass of kopi o peng at the kopitiam across the road.
Then there are extreme cases of writer’s block where professional writers are not able to work for years and end up abandoning their careers.
Further reading on writer’s block revealed that the condition is actually described and studied by many.
The first person to describe the condition was psychoanalyst Edmund Bergler in 1947.
Since then the experts have moved on to explore the possible reasons for writer’s block.
In most cases, writers may be overwhelmed with information causing them not to know where to begin.
In other cases, it could just boil down to fatigue and all it takes is a good rest, or a good getaway to get back on track.
It could also result from a loss of inspiration or some form of distraction.
Writers are said to be emotional people (then again, most creative people are perceived to be emotional).
Being emotional usually means they can suffer from frequent attacks of anxiety.
There are also writers who, according to the experts, experience a more serious kind of writer’s block.
There are those who suffer from anxiety, worrying about what their peers and readers may think of their work.
There are those too who may be adversely affected by other circumstances in their lives, for example financial problems may push writers to force themselves to write, killing inspiration and creativity.
Another school of thought suggests that writer’s block is not real and it is just an excuse for writers who are poorly prepared, or have not properly thought through their piece.
The Eye would rather agree with the psychoanalysts, especially since neurologists are also in the picture.
These experts have connected writer’s block to a disruption in brain activity.
Of course, there are many suggestions on how to overcome writer’s block.
These suggestions range from getting some rest, taking time out to de-stress and brainstorming with peers.
One remedy for writer’s block the Eye came across through reading is to practise free
writing.
Here the writer can use little scraps of paper or a notebook to write down random thoughts at any time of the day, without
really having the intention of writing.
These random thoughts or flow of ideas can help the writer to eventually develop an article or piece of work.
And this is exactly how this article came to be. Two hours ago the Eye scribbled the words ‘writer’s block’ on scrap paper, along with question marks, some doodles and words like ‘why’ and ‘causes’.
Hence, you have a writer with writer’s block writing about it.