When you cannot write. . .
Have you ever sat in front of your laptop or desktop with your chest full of stuff and found that you could not type, that you could not write a single word? I have. You see, when my heart is full – of sorrow or joy – I relieve the pressure by writing. A lot of the articles I have written both theological and secular were just me thinking out loud in print and in the process airing my head or chest. As I was saying earlier though sometimes I simply cannot bring myself to express my thoughts. There’ll be so much going on in the old brain that you could probably generate enough electricity to power Kaduna State if you were to stick a turbine in there or something, but somehow I’m unable to write about any of it. This article is me wondering why.
Ordinarily, when an author has writer’s block it is due to a loss of inspiration; in my humble opinion, the most fertile source of literary inspiration is personal experience. I remember a column in the since defunct ‘Prime People’, a magazine popular in Nigeria in the 90s, which was titled “It Happened to Me!” That title aptly expresses the thought I’m trying to pass across. There’s an authenticity, a ‘realness’ if you like, about it “happening to me” that makes the articles virtually write themselves. If my hypothesis thus far is correct then should it not be that when the heart is full one should be able to write endlessly about it? So why can’t we? Do you see my point?
I have come to the conclusion that at least 2 reasons are responsible for this baffling phenomenon. The first proposition is that this happens because of the weight of the issues on the mind, you know, that perhaps the stuff you’re going through and that occupies your mind forms such a heavy mass in/around the intellect that finding a point to access it from is difficult. This perhaps applies more when the issues are negative; I can envisage circumstances in which I would be too excited to write but it is more likely that it is the burden of a negative experience that steals the luxury of the capacity to write about personal experience. My second suggestion is that being unable to write despite having personal experiences to draw from may simply be a matter of privacy. I mean, who would want to write about the gory details of their being caught committing a crime, suffering through a bad marriage or being the victim of something heinous like rape or assault? Not many I’d say. You may be brave enough to start putting pen on paper but when those words receive life via your pen, you get to see how nasty it all really is and imagine all sorts of people – including strangers! – reading same. Not surprisingly, you freeze up. I understand sharing your experiences with others to help them when they face similar situations but some things are too weighty and/or personal to share. This brings me to my second point. When the events are happy ones, with attendant positive thoughts, you may just not be ready to tell ‘outsiders’ why your heels aren’t touching the ground when you walk. The sheer intimacy of a joyous occasion – your wife announcing a pregnancy! – may be such that it would be almost sacrilegious to divulge to 3rd parties, at least for a time.
Whatever the case may be, sometimes you find that you have a lot to say but simply cannot. If you have any insight on why this happens, I would appreciate it if you kindly shared it here. When I cannot write I talk to God and to the person/ persons closest to me and I find it has the same soothing effect without the stress of trying to apply myself to rules of proper and effective communication.
What do you do when you cannot write?
Ordinarily, when an author has writer’s block it is due to a loss of inspiration; in my humble opinion, the most fertile source of literary inspiration is personal experience. I remember a column in the since defunct ‘Prime People’, a magazine popular in Nigeria in the 90s, which was titled “It Happened to Me!” That title aptly expresses the thought I’m trying to pass across. There’s an authenticity, a ‘realness’ if you like, about it “happening to me” that makes the articles virtually write themselves. If my hypothesis thus far is correct then should it not be that when the heart is full one should be able to write endlessly about it? So why can’t we? Do you see my point?
I have come to the conclusion that at least 2 reasons are responsible for this baffling phenomenon. The first proposition is that this happens because of the weight of the issues on the mind, you know, that perhaps the stuff you’re going through and that occupies your mind forms such a heavy mass in/around the intellect that finding a point to access it from is difficult. This perhaps applies more when the issues are negative; I can envisage circumstances in which I would be too excited to write but it is more likely that it is the burden of a negative experience that steals the luxury of the capacity to write about personal experience. My second suggestion is that being unable to write despite having personal experiences to draw from may simply be a matter of privacy. I mean, who would want to write about the gory details of their being caught committing a crime, suffering through a bad marriage or being the victim of something heinous like rape or assault? Not many I’d say. You may be brave enough to start putting pen on paper but when those words receive life via your pen, you get to see how nasty it all really is and imagine all sorts of people – including strangers! – reading same. Not surprisingly, you freeze up. I understand sharing your experiences with others to help them when they face similar situations but some things are too weighty and/or personal to share. This brings me to my second point. When the events are happy ones, with attendant positive thoughts, you may just not be ready to tell ‘outsiders’ why your heels aren’t touching the ground when you walk. The sheer intimacy of a joyous occasion – your wife announcing a pregnancy! – may be such that it would be almost sacrilegious to divulge to 3rd parties, at least for a time.
Whatever the case may be, sometimes you find that you have a lot to say but simply cannot. If you have any insight on why this happens, I would appreciate it if you kindly shared it here. When I cannot write I talk to God and to the person/ persons closest to me and I find it has the same soothing effect without the stress of trying to apply myself to rules of proper and effective communication.
What do you do when you cannot write?
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