CarrollBlog

One of the questions people frequently ask is do I ever get writer’s block and if so, what do I do about it? Luckily I’ve never had that gruesome beast but I do have some thoughts about it, and those thoughts run into the idea of creativity in general.

I love watching TV documentaries about nature/animal preserves in Africa. Particularly ones that feature the way game wardens live there. Inevitably these hardy people have one thing in common—they adopt strays. Sometimes it’s a baby rhino whose mother was shot by poachers, a one- legged ostrich, or the astonishing Jessica the hippo in South Africa (see the YouTube videos of her). Watching how these animals have become part of the game warden’s household is a joy. They wander in and out of the house, they’re fed (sometimes) in the kitchen, they constantly get underfoot and are treated like beloved pests rather than man- eating lions. I also like the way they pair off in strange ways—the baby rhino is best friends with the baby ostrich, the bull terrier dogs adopted Jessica the hippo as their sister and sleep next to her every night out on the porch. All of this is reminiscent of the famous Hicks painting, A PEACEABLE KINGDOM.

But there is one thing I've noticed about all of these people. No matter where they live and what kind of animals live with them: they always leave the doors and windows of their house open. It took a while to dawn on me why this was so, but when it did the realization hit like a hammer blow. These are wild animals. They may nap on your couch, drink out of the toilet, or share a bowl of puppy kibble with the three dogs. But they are *wild animals*. As long as the human beings leave their doors and windows open, these animals come and go as they please. They feel free—they determine where they want to be. But if the doors were closed I am certain that sooner or later the animal would feel trapped and all hell would break loose. They have befriended their human family but are not part of it. They are separate and must always be treated so. If they are at any time closed in, their true natures roar out and they show their fangs, or worse.

I like to write. I always have. I consider writing my friend. We sit down together in the morning and do our job. But (and this is a big but) if my friend Writing (notice the capital W) says not today because I’d rather goof off, or drink coffee, or nothing at all, I say fine—no work today. If that extends to a week, then so be it. Like the wild animals living so incongruously but comfortably in a gamekeeper’s house on the Serengeti Plain, Writing stays friendly so long as I let him come and go as he pleases. If he doesn’t want to stay in the house and walks out for a while, I simply do something else like read a book or go to the movies. I never, ever grab Writing by the neck and say you sit back down here and go to work. I'd never treat a friend like that, nor would I treat a tiger like that. So why treat the thing I love as much as my creative ability like that?

I believe people get writer’s block a lot of the time because they panic when the flow stops. Then they run around the house shutting the 'doors and windows,' trying to trap their creativity inside. Bad idea. I do think that if they were to just move away from the work for however long, many of their problems would solve themselves. Some of you could say yeah but I’ve been blocked for six months—what about that? I’d posit it’s likely some of your block, perhaps not all, is because you are frightened and trying to close all your windows. Which in turn has scared your Writing and made IT panicky. You get my drift. Of course there are exceptions. But I really do believe the greatest trick to either get going in the morning, or after a long dry spell, or even trying to conquer the fearsome mountain of ‘I don’t know where to go from here’….is to get up and walk away. At least until you feel comfortable. Or in the best-case scenario, until you are eager to get back to work again. Because at that point your friend Writing or Creativity says okay, I’m rested and ready to go. I’m so happy you left me alone to go out into the world a while to recharge my batteries.

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an interesting link from DL:
http://yabloka.blogspot.com/2008/12/cones-and-rods-not-needed.html