Writing has always been my finest pleasure, a lifelong pursuit; slaying a deadline carried almost carnal satisfaction, scooping ‘the other guys’ brought a joy profound and undertaking work on a book was the thrilling embarkation of a full blown odyssey, one which promised years of grave robbing, skip tracing, artifact plundering, idol shattering—truly one of life’s most fulfilling adventures, a march-or-die pursuit without relent, relief or remedy save for that final, unspeakably sweet moment of culmination: the ultima sententia, the closing line, followed by the bone-weary, ecstatic hunt and peck necessary to finally reach: T H E E N D.
Launching this Substack has been one of the greatest joys of my professional life: the total freedom it provides is intoxicating and I’ve saddled up and ridden into previously unexplored, occasionally lurid, territories which have been immensely rewarding. Yet for the last six months, I’ve come up dry, dry and dead as McTeague and Marcus’ sun-bleached bones scattered across the floor of Death Valley. Their fate seemed preferable to the smothering cocoon of impotence and ennui within which I was enveloped.
Take a break, I told myself, after forty plus years of non-stop scrivening some slight respite was both hard earned and honestly deserved. But it wasn’t that easily accounted for. The creation, the romance with language was as ardent as ever but I found the mechanics—structure, transitions, the editorial procedure itself—was suddenly a huge pain in the ass, something I wanted nothing to do with and was, in fact, running away from.
Then it hit me. BLOCKED. Well and thoroughly, undeniably fucking blocked.
For years I viewed the very concept of writer’s block with scorn and derision. It was shameful, the mark of a weakling, a feather weight, an amateur. I’d never needed solitude or quiet to produce, churning out two well received, groundbreaking books, countless top-quality long-form articles, profiles, reviews, previews, press bios and PR jobs, all in the midst of raising, from diapering to 911-level teenage shenanigans, two wild little boys, as well as surviving a viciously ugly domestic betrayal and divorce, a blood curdling auto wreck and the death of both parents.
Having recognized and defined the condition, it still took weeks to acknowledge the reality of it, but the bleak truth was inescapable. Finding a way out seemed a Sisyphean task.
Research into the academic explorations of this woeful phenom’s pathology was almost as frustrating as the block itself; the pioneering mid-century psychiatrist Edmund Bergler, who spent years studying the “neurotic inhibitions of creativity” certain writers suffered, concluded (going way out on a limb) that therapy was the answer; decades later, Yale psychologists Michael V Barrios and Jerome L. Singer expanded (inconclusively) on Bergler’s work but ultimately lent credence to the theory of other researchers (P.L. Garfield, R.N. Shepherd) that a “creative impasse can be terminated by the occurrence of vivid day or night dreams.” Yep, you read that right: daydreams, or as Barrios and Singer rather misleadingly termed it “natural imagery” (see their “Writer’s Block and Blocked Writers: Using Natural Imagery to Enhance Creativity”).
That sounded more like “made-up bullshit” to me. Bergler, clearly, was on the right track. I regularly see a gifted, insightful therapist and we’ve repeatedly gone back and forth on this issue. “Fix it!!” I demanded last week; she unhesitatingly replied, “I can’t—you have to do this yourself.”
There were no hard answers forthcoming. She stressed that it was not the stark black and white negative I had developed in my mind and urged me to explore the variegated shades of grey that comprised the actual psychic picture, subtle layers of overlooked possibilities and potential positive options and outcomes.
As we discussed it, the matter of the cause itself, the germ of this malaise, nagged at me—how had I come to such a state? As it took hold, I concurrently built up an internalized pressure, one that expected the reflexive relief of my S.O.P. wham, bam Go Ahead methodology; as time passed and that failed to materialize, my attitude degenerated into a sick, hobbled acceptance. Drought conditions prevailed and there was Sweet FA to be done.
Snugly bound by this plight, I thrust myself into victim mentality—an absolutely horrifying development which yanked me full circle back to the scorn I’d always held towards the blocked moper (O, joy, self-loathing at last!). Having reached that point, groping through the dense grey fog my therapist pushed me into, I unexpectedly stumbled across an exit, recognizing that indeed one must pull back—to de-escalate the tension—and consciously permit an overdue pressure drop.
What finally allowed me to produce this piece was interaction with two creative colleagues (and longtime pals) Tracy Dawn Thompson and Chip Kinman. The former had recently written “The Beautiful Grey,” a gloriously unconventional song which graphically and thoughtfully explored the very concept my therapist proposed; the latter, doubtless weary of my pissing and moaning on the subject, asked “Why don’t you write about being blocked?”
That made sense. So, I did. And here we are. Banging this out felt absolutely marvelous—and profoundly liberating—and I cannot emphasize enough how much you (yes, YOU, and all my Substack readers) and your patience and support means. Please stand by, as I eagerly look forward to catapulting my revivified soul way, way, way up into a wilder blue journalistic yonder.
Great piece! Writer’s block is simply frustrating. When I get to that point, I let my brain drift. Or, take long walks. And read a lot. Be at the moment and don’t fret over the past or what will happen in the future. Just be at the present and be playful. Play time is important.