If you watch a kettle boil when making a
cup of tea, you’ll notice three things. First, it’s boring, and you feel like
you’re wasting time. Second, time itself seems to slow down, right before it
boils. It’s as if those pesky water molecules need an extra kicking to get them
to dance around more and actually boil. Third, it goes quiet before it actually
boils. The calm before the storm. There’s a fourth thing, too. If you think,
‘to hell with it, it’s hot enough’, and decide to make the tea anyway without
letting the water boil, it won’t taste as good.
What’s this got to do with writing and
writer’s block?
Everything.
Sometimes writing flows from your
fingertips. I’m writing a new book, and the prologue and first ten chapters
just fell from the keys on my laptop. Bliss. Then I hit chapter eleven. I wrote
three pages and… stopped. I haven’t typed another word for two weeks. Writer’s
block.
Am I afraid?
Nope.
As a psychologist, I studied how creativity
works at university. There’s something called incubation theory. Great
scientists didn’t sit down one day and say, ‘I’m going to write a
universe-shattering theory today.’ They’d learn everything they could, think
about it until they were going crazy, and then one day, out of the blue, they’d
suddenly see the answer. What was interesting is that most of these scientists
had the same ‘kettle’ experience of supposedly dead time, where they weren’t
learning anything knew. Like the water molecules, the neurons in their brains
just needed more time to re-group, to re-align to see things from a slightly
different perspective, and then, hey presto, time to write that Nobel
prize-winning paper.
Back to writer’s block. What’s holding me
back on chapter eleven? Basically the original way forward I had in mind isn’t
singing to me anymore. I need to write something better. But I can’t / won’t write until I see that new way forward.
Some people say you should write every day,
e.g. 500 or 1000 words. Doesn’t work for me. I only write when I have something
to say. Otherwise I feel I’m teaching myself to write badly.
So, what do I do? Do I watch the kettle
boil? Yes, and no. I sit, sometimes for a couple of hours, trying to work out a
way forward, making illegible notes on small pieces of paper. Seriously, my
handwriting is that bad. It doesn’t matter, because this is process, not
product. I’m banging my head against this literary wall in my mind, trying to
break through, so it doesn’t matter if I can’t decipher the notes later.
And I read. Same genre, someone I aspire
to, though that doesn’t mean I want to copy them. And I do other stuff, what
non-writers call ‘real life’. It’s not so bad. Really.
And then one day, it goes quiet in my mind.
The calm before the storm. Then the rumbling. The molecules get off their
asses, the neurons re-align, and a shaft of light, maybe just a glimmer,
breaks through. It’s enough. I grab my laptop. I can’t type fast enough. Anyone
that tries to bother me will wish they hadn’t. The internet stays off. Phones
go unanswered. I write. The story pours through my fingertips.
Usually after several hours, the chapter is
done. It’s rough, it will need a lot of editing, but I’m happy with it. I go
make a cup of tea. And while the kettle is boiling, I think about the next
chapter, and the one after, already unfolding in my mind. I know in a few weeks,
or a few months, that writer’s block will be back to haunt me. Am I afraid?
Nope. It’s a natural part of the writing process. It makes our writing better.
Okay. The kettle has boiled. Tea time.
Chapter eleven, here we come!
J.F. Kirwan's novel 66 Metres is now available from Amazon here.
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