Is It Writer’s Block Or Is It The Inability To See Where The Words Will Take Me?
Exploring why my writing journey stops and starts and stops and starts
I stopped writing. For 6 weeks, but has felt like 9 months.
My nine and a half followers may or may not have noticed. That’s the beauty of being yet undiscovered. No expectations, no great loss here.
I wrote a piece, 11 minutes long, and of course no one cared to sit and read for 11 minutes. And then because I got zero traction (what was I thinking?) I went into my dark hole of wondering yet again, why exactly am I writing?
I was just starting to be on a roll, writing a little more frequently, writing just for the sake of writing. Then when I chose this one particular topic, my writing grew to be 11 minutes long. Put a damn sock in it, Della.
Marketing-wise it was not a smart choice. Self expression-wise it was.
But alas, herein lies the conundrum. Am I writing for self-expression? Or am I writing for self-expression AND money-making? I suppose there is a difference. A difference that I struggle with, and it shows in my starting and stopping, starting and stopping.
And she said at her weekly Writer’s Anonymous meeting: I’m Della Jennsen, and I don’t know what the hell and why the hell I’m writing anymore.
So my Medium blogging went dark for about 6 weeks.
The first part of that time I spent at a mental pity-party, wallowing on how I would ever find success.
That transitioned into writer’s block, which was really more like full-blown quitting. I don’t have time for this. I’ve got too many personal responsibilities on my plate to devote enough time to writing with the frequency I would need to write to be successful in even a small fashion.
From there my mind teased me occasionally with story ideas, but I ignored them, succumbing to real life rather than where the words and eventual stories would take me.
Then by week 4 and 5, I was caring for my mother who caught the Coronavirus in her senior community. My energy was spent on quarantining and trying not to get me and my family sick while living with an infected person.
Life has settled down, things are returning to pandemic-normal, and here I am, somehow “starting” writing again.
I’m hoping this time I can see where the words will take me, and maybe I’ll let them.