Blocked by the Blank, White Screen…
There are few things more frustrating to me as a writer than having nothing to write about. I drown in the blank expanse of white on my screen, wondering if I might be able to get something down simply by putting my head down on the keyboard for a given amount of time and seeing what comes from my forehead, cheek and nose.
It never works, though. I always have to suck it up and make myself sit down, put hands to keyboard – or pen to paper – and write about something, even if it’s that I have nothing to write about.
There’s a difference between “not having something to write about” and “there being nothing to write about”, you know.
I could tell you about the books I’m reading, but to be honest, they’re the same books I talked about last week for most part. I mean, I moved onto another volume of Fables, but 1Q84 is nearly a thousand pages long and I highly doubt I’ll be completing it in the very near future, even if I sit and read it every hour of every day for the next week.
I could tell you about the crazy awesome comics I’m reading, but I suffer a severe case of stage fright when it comes to comics. I think it’s because I interact with so many well-spoken and opinionated women online every day who talk comics and my knowledge of them is microscopic compared to theirs. I shouldn’t let it get to me, but it does. So, rather than sharing my opinions on comics outside of telling you what I’m reading, I just want to encourage you to go to your local comic store and pick something up. A lot of relaunches started recently that make it easy to jump right into comics if you’re not sure where to start. And the faces will be familiar – you grew up reading some of these characters in the funny pages or watching them in cartoon form on Saturday mornings, right?
I am reading Terry Moore’s Rachel Rising, by the way. If you’re into The Walking Dead or zombie stuff in general, I highly recommend it. It’s beautiful, interesting and creepy all at the same time.
I still have a stack of books guilting me from my bedside table. If I add any more to their numbers, they will threaten to collapse and smoother me in my sleep.
It’s not the first time they’ve threatened this and it probably won’t be the last.
Short of the reading and the struggling to pull words from my fingertips, I’m constantly on the hunt for new and interesting things to read about, write about and listen to. I’ve stumbled onto the podcast bandwagon and I’m listening through a backlog of episodes of the Nerdist podcast during my workouts.
They’re hilarious. And they’re nerdy. And they talk about nerdy things and to nerdy guests. If you’re a fan of comedy, I highly recommend them. And I’ve found some great funny women to listen to as a result of some of their guests which is always fun. In fact, I just listened to the episode with HelloGiggles co-founder Zooey Deschanel on it this afternoon! She was awesome!
They’re made doubly so because I work out by walking around my town. Listening to these podcasts, walking around town, sometimes laughing out loud has earned me some seriously strange looks. I wonder if I’m getting a reputation as “that crazy girl with a big smile on her face all the time” or if they just ignore me, as so many of us do the people who walk by us everyday.
I want to blame this writer’s block on the weather. It’s the driving wind and rain this week that has made my reaction to everything around me have an echo of “blah”. The big excitement was cleaning.
That’s right. I was excited to clean.
I did find some pretty stellar toys in my collection though. It’s great the random little things you can uncover when you put your mind to finally slogging through that gigantic stack of paper and general life detritus that’s hanging out on your desk or dresser.
I really should be looking at this positively though, right? The rain, the wind, they’re making me stay inside, curled up with a book on the couch so I can come up with actual things to write about for the future? That’s my hope at least!
