I haven’t written a word in ages. Not a blog post or a letter or even a grocery list. I try to read other blogs about writer’s block and books about writing tools, but I think what I have isn’t writers block, but total writing avoidance. I find myself actively avoiding this blog and the computer in general. I don’t check the email address associated with this blog because I am afraid that if I do I will feel guilty for not writing. But, when I come here and I write and I share my experiences and I put out a new blog post, I feel elated. I know that my one true passion is for writing and yet I avoid it as if it will somehow cause me harm.
I have thought about the possibility that what I am most strongly avoiding is writing about RP. I find myself avoiding a lot of things because of the RP; some because of physical limitations or ramifications and some for purely emotional reasons. But, I don’t have to write about RP. I choose to write about RP because it is what I know and it is so entangled with every moment of my life, but I don’t write because I have RP. I loved to write long before I knew I was going blind and even then I suffered from this total writing avoidance.
So, maybe I am just lazy and I don’t want to put in the work it takes to write something I can feel proud of. But I will do the dishes and clean the house and work out and do the laundry and a host of other things before I ever get around to sitting down at the computer. I will take the time to crochet 20 scarves to avoid writing.
Maybe it is fear. But of what? Pressure, failure, discovery? Perhaps I am afraid that I really don’t have anything to say or that if I try I will find my voice has disappeared. I don’t know.
But I do know that I am here now, in this moment on this day, writing. And it doesn’t have to be perfect or great or even good as long as the words are there.
Stories From the Edge of Blindness 
May 8, 2012 at 7:23 am
I am very interested in writer’s block, and particularly in literary representations of it. I’ve just read a brilliant book (mostly) about it by Yann Martel called ‘Beatrice and Virgil’. My fledgling theory is that it is an encounter with mortality that we fear. ‘Writing’, i.e. literary writing, is so bound up with the idea of literary immortality, that doing it equates to facing death. Personally, I create different displacements: so for the last ten years or so I’ve been writing plenty of academic work in order not to write any ‘real’ work. My solution is that we need to abandon the idea of literary immortality altogether, and instead feel part of a dialogue, a conversation. In which case writing blogs and comments on blogs, etc, is exactly the right thing to do. (And incidentally I think having a degenerative condition like RP makes mortality ever present in your life – and hence writing a hell of a lot more difficult.) Anyway, I enjoyed your post! And the scarves are gorgeous, too.
May 9, 2012 at 2:28 pm
I think this is brilliant. In becoming or feeling like part of a dialogue or conversation, the fear that screams so loudly in the solitude that is so much of a writers life can hopefully be quieted. I know I need to find new ways of thinking about things and I love that you are helping me to do this. Thanks for the compliment about the scarves.
s