Writer's Block

For weeks now, I’ve been struggling to write, not even something profound, but anything that made sense. I’ve just not had the mind for it. Even now, after writing that sentence, I’ve stopped and stared for several minutes out the darkened kitchen window. No thought entered my mind.

It’s like I’m disconnected from myself and from the source of thoughts and ideas I had earlier last year. Somehow the confidence anyone was interested in my musings has gone, or is at least hidden.

I’ve been trying to figure if this is ‘just’ writer’s block or a symptom of something else. Given my previous cases of blockages, this one isn’t acting normally. I can often trip myself into writing a note or a letter. That action greases the mental wheels. I can’t seem to get energy to do that, or to write a general email to friends as to how I’m faring. I can’t write the many thank yous in answer to a basketful of well wishers. I can barely write my checks and stuff them into envelopes, let alone think up an ad campaign for my novel.

“Stuck” is the best word I can use to describe my state of mind, and yet I have great joy in talking on the phone, hiking around the property with the men I have clearing defensible space around the house. I’m enjoying TV and movies, cooking classes. I’m sewing, baking, hammering away at house projects.

I’ve decided this period of time must be ‘me’ trying to get my house in order so I can feel free to open the door for my muse to enter. She doesn’t feel comfortable trancing with her stories and characters unless our external world is in some kind of order. She must’ve wanted me to have a break from her demands so she’s kept quiet while I’ve been reorienting myself to my new life and being pampered over my birthday weekend. It could be she wanted me to have these new experiences to add depth to our work together. After all, our third novel to construct is the “Women’s Bundle” while we edit number two, "The Spirit Bundle".

So I’ve decided to accept her judgment, to give myself a break and not judge ‘me’ too harshly and therefore not judge her. Besides, what’s not to like about a little time off?