Preemptive Retaliation

I’m one of those terrible writers who don’t believe in writers block. I don’t like to be smug about it though. Sometimes, during interviews, I see authors who denounce writers block, who talk it down as though it’s just a state of mind and you wouldn’t suffer from if you were a true writer. Actually, I’m exaggerating there, but it’s the impression I get sometimes.

But, yeah, I don’t believe in writers block. Not traditionally. I don’t believe in minds toiling with lack of ideas, or fingers not moving across the keyboard. I believe in distractions, and procrastination, and boredom, but not block. Personally, I don’t run out of ideas for things to write or scenes to work on, but I get distracted very easily. I made the unfortunate decision of taking my computer – my workstation, my research tool, my entire creative hub – and filling it to the brim with videogames. And then I somehow made the decision to have Steam load on start-up which means before I can open a word document, before I can even select a playlist to listen to, I have a plethora of videogames begging me to play them.

Somehow I push past them, promising to play them later, only to be snared in the complex web that is… the web. So I spend hours refreshing the same two sites over and over again, hoping they’ll change in some meaningful way (they don’t).

And then we end up writing. Finally. At last. I sit, get myself thinking on a story, and fire out precisely three sentences before opening up those websites and hitting refresh, or fiddling with the music I’m listening to, or even just looking at all my games again. Today alone I have discovered several new bands, rediscovered old ones and read and reread two comics. All while trying to write a story that has been bugging me for a full year.

That story is in the background, right now. All five hundred words are  hidden behind this page, and a podcast, and maybe my videogame library.

Yes, right now you are reading my distraction. You are reading my writers block.

I don’t think this is entirely bad, since I’ve written five hundred words which is less than what I wanted but still an impressive amount for an idea that I completely destroyed just to build from the ground up this morning. Still, I am annoyed with myself. I’m using a blog post to ignore real work, on the pretense that I need to write a blog.

I think it’s reassuring though? It reminds me of how long it really takes to write things. Some people can write books in a few months, and then move on to the next one with no real bother. My book took six years – six years – to write, and there was a reason for that. Writing is effort, it is work, and while it is fun it is also so hard.

And easily distractable from.

Fuck it Joe, get back to work.

Currently Reading: Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky – Sex Criminals