Writer's Block.

Over my writing career I have had to contend with the old writer's block. I have friends who have bouts with it that last for years. They'll produce widely published work and then vanish from the face of publication for two, three years at a stretch. I'll ask them what's been going on and they'll admit that they have been suffering from writer's block. For years. They always tend to break out of it, but the bouts can quite actually last that long.

I've been generally lucky in that regard. When the fiction is flowing and nothing on Earth can stop me from writing I wonder how something like writer's block can even occur. But for the past few weeks I have been dealing with it. I'll sit before the wordprocessor and...nothing. I have deadlines, both official and self-imposed. It doesn't matter. Nothing comes.

This is one reason that I started blogging. It keeps me in the habit of writing and gets the neurons firing so that writer's block doesn't become an issue for me. But it hasn't helped me much on this current problem. I think I know what's at the base of it, but that doesn't make breaking out of it a whole lot easier. I just have to struggle through this project and I'll be okay. Light at the end of the tunnel and all that.

One thing that I do know is that I have a lot more respect for those who can hack write. Write for a specific project, on demand, for a fee. Like the pulp authors of old, these folk have my respect, because I surely can't do it. If I don't completely believe in a project I find myself with an almost insurmountable problem.

Onward!