Writer's Block

What exactly is "writer's block"? Dictionary.com defines it as a "usually temporary psychological inability to begin or continue work on a piece of writing." It must be big business, too, as a Google search results in 159,000 returns, many for incantations, tools, courses, and questionable paraphernalia you can purchase to rid yourself of this curse.

Personally, I've never experienced this condition. No, really! I've met a few people who said they had it, however they didn't come under my definition of a writer (see the first entry in this blog). It's a convenient excuse for not writing, like pencil sharpening and walking down to the lane to the mail box once were. Those activities have morphed into cleaning up a directory and reading email. Now an aggregator provides additional opportunity for distraction. It chimes when a news story or blog entry is fed into my computer from the Internet. Communication rules!

I may live to consume my virtual verbiage because I'm beginning a novel. Perhaps writer's block will strike me in the struggle with fiction. It seems improbable to suffer from this malady in the nonfiction world where stories abound, and all you have to do is gather the facts and string them together in a cute, coherent manner. I once likened the plethora of topics for feature articles to a pack of puppies, yipping all around me, tugging at my hem and nipping my ankles.

After I finished the entry on Hemingway's brick, and while thinking about writer's block, I realized Hemingway's brick is my writer's block.

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