Could you imagine waking up and being unable to speak?
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Could you imagine waking up and being unable to speak?
Your life is a silent movie.
That is what it is like when your fingers cannot translate, cannot write what is in your head. Some call it writer’s block, some think it is like Santa Claus and they don’t believe it’s real.
Whatever it is, you feel creatively constipated.
Ideas move through you like water through a filter. Nothing fits, nothing catches.
You ache.
You ache because there are words that need to come out, just as a singer needs to sing and a baker needs to bake. You need to write or part of you fears it will die.
We all know this is normal. Everyone has dry spells, less productive seasons, contractions following an expansion.
But it sucks. Sucks the breath out of your lungs.
Writer’s block.
It’s like saying Voldemort and people shush you.
Sometimes, the most creative thing you can do is write your name or turn right, but even that is the dusty stuff of life.
So you do what you can.
You write your pain, write your soul, and write poetry. You close your eyes and give voice to the tearing veins. You scream and run and get it out.
You begin to see that any writing blocks that you have serve a purpose. Your soul is telling you to take care of yourself, and hear what is inside of your quiet.
Blocks stacked on each other become steps. And steps take you somewhere.
Your writing can put you back together when you let it come.
You let go of brilliant and witty and funny and your fingers learn to follow again. Being unable to speak gets you back to nature. You’ve got time on your hands and blood on your fingers but it is right.
The blocks become the teacher, and you the student. The student plays with blocks and marbles and crayons, and playing is how writers find their game again.
Writing blocks will take you to where you need to be.
Have patience, the words will find their way back home to your fingers.
Keep it Real
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Previously published by smswaby in Some Talk of You and Me and is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Flickr/Caitlin Lindsay
