642-10: What Does Writers Block Feel Like?
Nothing is flowing. Finding my characters, creating their story, bringing them to life, writing something interesting, finishing an idea, it’s just not happening. Every idea sounds too self interested, not creative enough, too creative, bland, copies of other pieces I’ve read or just not very good. I'm annoyed, frustrated and i want to give up.
The more I try the more it feels forced and the less anything, even anything bad, bubbles to the surface. Ideas for stories stare out at me, teasing me, tormenting me... i just don't where to take any of them.In the (clearly dusty) creative corners of my mind I found Mike and an astronaut.
Mike has clowns at his front door. Poor guy has coulrophobia and doesn’t know what to do when he opens it. They just need help finding their miniature giraffe who was spooked and ran away but he’s frozen with a million horrors running through his mind…. And I’ve just got no idea what happens next.
Cruising through Ursa Major the astronaut is having a most perfect day and is waiting for me to tell their story. They may be a long way from home but my creative engine is struggling, limping at low impulse to the moon.
Creative experiences have even filled my week, you'd think that would help. In a room called “Swap” part of “13 Rooms”, a brilliant experiential art exhibition challenging perception and human interaction Chris, a lady in her 70’s who didn’t believe in her own storytelling ability, created an enthralling story from the heart in her first ever attempt at stream of consciousness writing. At the insistence of the artist she it read publicly. The room burst into genuine applause and admiration as she stood shyly in disbelief and self doubt.
In the same room I swapped my just purchased Earth 2 comic book for an old school 80’s $10 note. It wasn’t for the money , it was for the value in an item I’ll probably never see again, and a tangible memory of the whole experience. It’s now framed with details of how I came to have it.
There is so much to tell about the vibrant, enthralling, fascinating, challenging experience that was 13 Rooms and this is only one part… It feels self indulgent and I don’t have the words to do it justice.
Creativity is also alive in my dreams.
The Barbarella, Star Wars and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert mash up of rebel, space fighting drag queens that has been a recurring dream for years is a story worth telling, I just can’t get it to sparkle.
In another dream a Sondheim musical is staged in NYC’s Central Park. Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Susan Sarandon, Angelina Jolie & Patti LuPone star as fictional broadway leads telling their story, playing to a sell out crowd. I only get to see it thanks to my fairy godmother Toni Collette…
You wouldn’t think it would be hard to breathe life into dreams of drag queens from space or legendary women singing Sondheim, some of the most vivid dreams I’ve ever had - rivalling the recurring night terrors made of either spiders or clowns - but here we are.
Living the definition of writers block.