Ethiopia: Writer’s Block – When an Obsession Becomes a Burden

What is a writer’s block in the first place? In brief, writer’s block is defined as a “condition of being unable to think of what to write or how to proceed with writing. According to writing expert mike Rose, writer’s block is defined as, “the inability to begin or continue writing for reasons other than a lack of basic skill or commitment.” The causes of writer’s block are many. Lack of inspiration is the main problem. Illness is another one. Writers, like any human being, are likely to fall ill occasionally. Neither fame nor money can make a writer immune to illness. And it is difficult or impossible to write anything while you are ill or in bed, even fighting a cold.

Depression is another issue. It is a mental illness. It may be temporary or chronic, but depression is a serious mental impairment that needs careful and long-term management. Naturally, you have to deal with your depression first before trying to restart writing, which is in itself a very stressful engagement. “Writer’s block is a depressive feeling where writing feels like a painful thought, and one question is why one is even bothering. This thought is often borne out of fear of failure, leading to emptiness that surrounds the mind, and one even fails to begin.”

Writers are generally considered to be materially or financially underprivileged, particularly in Africa where the publishing industry is poorly developed, and the literacy rate is the lowest in the world. I have never found a writer who boasted about his/her wealth but many lament their material conditions.

That may be why many of them fall victims to the bad habit of drinking when the ink becomes dry. It may be out of anger, but writers are often rumored to be very sensitive about their poor financial conditions and quick to run to the bottle. That will not of course bring about wealth but makes a bad situation even worse. According to another opinion, writer’s block is not a diagnosable mental condition, but it can still be connected to symptoms such as anxiety.

Irrespective of the duration of writer’s block, there are remedies suggested by people who study the good and bad moments of the writing profession. Among the suggested remedies are reading. If you can’t write, you can overcome your misery by reading good books that may help you rediscover your writing inspiration. Taking a break or a vacation or indulging in recreational activities might help relax your mind and get it into gear. Change of settings is also another remedy, that is to say changing places, conditions and habits that encourage writing.

When writers rediscover their imagination after a long or short bout of writer’s block, they are advised to write as it comes, that is to say, writing as ideas come and decide to edit them later instead of stopping at every station along their writing efforts. Fear of another block may be the reason, but it is found to write fast without worrying about form or content in order not to fall again into the dark pit of writer’s block.

It is as if you have suddenly lost your faculty for thinking lucidly and putting pen to paper or you simply stare at the blank page on your computer screen, unable even to type a single word. You feel a sudden revulsion, a malaise, lack of interest or inability to find the right word to start with. This is indeed a malaise that afflicts many scribblers, including the most seasoned ones, who at one time or another in their career, are paralyzed by the sudden realization that they have lost the ability to think and find the right words at the right time or simply or simply freeze or feel the terror of being unable to jot down a single word.

There is of course something frightening or intimidating about finding it impossible to do something you have been doing for many years or a lifetime. When you temporarily lose the imagination, the inspiration and the initiative to do something you have been enjoying all your life, it may feel like a disaster. Writer’s block literally means that your capacity to write what you want to write is temporarily stopped or blocked by something beyond your control.

Writer’s block is not generally considered an illness or a disease but its cause may involve something akin to sickness. The most common causes for writer’s block are considered lack of inspiration, illness, depression, financial pressure, and a sense of failure.

Naturally, imagination may sometimes play tricks on you. You may feel full of the urge or pressure to write and when you sit down at your table, ideas elude you as if they evaporated like dew under the morning sun. You want to write but you cannot write. Your mind feels empty, or dysfunctional as if you lost the faculty for rational thinking. Words ran away from you and your fingers froze on the computer keys. You are silenced by a force beyond your control or comprehension.

The only thing you can do is to leave your computer and decide to take a walk or go to the nearest coffee house to sip a big hot cup of the magical beverage. You have already heard or read about famous writers who rediscovered their inspiration after downing half a dozen cups of the brown brew. Then you return to your computer with an upbeat feeling, confident about finding enough courage to sit back at your table.

You try to strike the keys of your computer, stare at the screen, or stare at the ceiling. Nothing comes out of your painful vigil and then you push aside the computer and rush out, unsure whether you will return soon or go back to the coffee shop or change trajectory and visit a beer joint you have abandoned for a long time. At last, you decide that is not your day and take an appointment for tomorrow. A writer’s block may take days or weeks, even years to give way to the normal flow of imagination. According to one information, the sudden loss of inspiration and/or imagination may last as long as ten years. Ten years without writing anything! That may certainly feel like a punishment or a banishment. If you are lucky, inspiration will finally return to you unannounced; the same way it had left you.

When an individual stops to write for a limited time, or their natural work flow and output are reduced from a flow into a trickle, it may be considered uneventful or a personal problem. But when writers stop to produce new works, well, it may be considered a kind of collective intellectual malaise or an indication that something is off in the collective conscious of the writing fraternity.

At the individual level, the causes of writer’s block are many.

There are moments in peoples engaged in the writing profession, whether in literature, journalism or any other profession where writing is the main, when they lack the inspiration to do their jobs regularly and stuck in the rut, so to say, they spend hours, weeks, months and even years to recover their natural pace and output in their careers.