Thursday, August 16, 2012

It's Not Writer's Block...Right?


It’s common knowledge that I love to write—and if it isn’t than clearly we haven’t met, so let’s get that out of the way: Hello. My name is Steph and I have a problem: I like to compose an extraordinary amount of words into somewhat coherent stories in a very small amount of time. Nice to meet you.

Now that little problem of mine has evolved into a new beast of its own: lack of motivation. I have a myriad of words bouncing around in the back of my head and absolutely no outlet for them.

Why?

Because when I open whichever word processing program suits my fancy today, I just stare at the screen.

Awkwardly.

For several long minutes.

And then I say to myself, “Hey! I wonder what David Tennant is going to do next!”

And turn on Doctor Who.

Because I’m just brilliant like that.

Now, I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong: This is not the dreaded Writer’s Block demon that writers so often have to fight a grand battle against before vanquishing. And I am not pulling a Timothy McGee and claiming that it’s not because I’m too stubborn to admit it. It really isn’t Writer’s Block—or at least it isn’t like any sort of Writer’s Block that I’ve ever faced before.

I actually love my characters. I love my plot—heck, I’m even at some parts that I have been yearning to write for months. And the words are even there! I just can’t get myself to put fingers to the keyboard.

A part of me just feels like this trilogy I’ve started is never going to end. And I want it to end, so badly—not in a “I’m sick of this story! I hate it!” sort of way, but in a “Dude! I want to see how all of this looks on paper!” way.

But I’m never going to see it on paper if I don’t get it out of my head.

And I can’t seem to get it out of my head because I have this monstrous, infinite plot laid out in front of me.

Which just leaves me on an endless trip around the Monopoly board of life—constantly passing ‘Go’ but never quite being able to collect my $200 because I’m too busy watching Doctor Who to realize the banker is stealing my money.

Yeah, I’m not quite sure what I meant by that either. Maybe it really is Writer’s Block.

Or maybe I just need school to start.

The words seem to flow more easily if I’m squeezing them into margins and half-covered notebooks while the professor strolls about class droning on about history and the government. They even flow better when I’m writing in between the spaces of the fifty trillion things on my “To Do” list.

Either way, it seems like a waste of perfectly good writing time to not write during summer.

So, I’ll just sit here, staring stubbornly at my computer screen until my characters cooperate and the words come out.

Or maybe I’ll just go watch some more Doctor Who.

;)