Writer's Block

It's official. I'm blocked. Not literally. Just literarily. I have been opening this blog daily since the last entry and sitting and staring at a blank screen. I've felt like a captive stuck in a room with white walls.  Walls I can't see beyond or around. It's been a cold and unwelcoming place where no matter what I do, I can't get a grip that enables me to pull the walls down. And it feels like I have been stuck here for ever. I'm almost finished my Year of the Edit course. Kim has been a fantastic teacher but I feel I have failed her. I have failed myself. Because instead of carving my manuscript into pieces that I polish like gems, I sit down every day to write and nothing comes. Not a thing. My fingers walk their way across the keyboard and engage the Off switch of my mac and once again, the big white block on the screen wins the staring comp. 

So what does one do, when blocked beyond all comprehension? When the project you loved with all of your heart lies abandoned upon the desk in a dust gathering pile of no hope? I have no answers to offer, and when I can't find words of my own, I turn to the words of others and I read. And in a way, I use it as an excuse to read for hours in a day - because somewhere amid the words of another, I will find my voice lurking behind the ink on their page. It will niggle and jump up and down and demand my attention, like a small child whose mother is on the phone talking. Eventually, after I ignore it enough by spending time with others, my muse and my motivation will edge its way back and demand I give them the attention they think they suddenly deserve. Eventually. 

Until then, I will read. And when the magic returns, so will I. And judging by the noise in my head as I write this, exposing my muse's resistant behaviour, I am guessing that I will be back at it sooner than I ever imagined.