Some people are natural born writers. If they’re given a pencil and paper they can put any thought into words. They are usually the more creative ones. If given a topic to write about, they could write about it for pages on pages. Things just flow easier for them. They know what words to use when and what words will make their writing sound more educational; like they know what they’re talking about.
That person was me.
Growing up, I had such an amazing talent for writing. I think it was my creative writing teacher in the sixth grade that pushed me to think outside of the box because then everything will all come naturally.
So, that’s what I did. I would come up with elaborate stories about flying pigs, bubble blowing dragons, or a sky that was green and the grass that was blue. You name it, and I’ve probably written a story about it at some time or another.
She made me feel powerful. Any thoughts or feelings I was having could be easily expressed through my pen and paper. It was a stress reliever. I would motivate my little classmates to write stories just like mine. I would tell them “just think of something so crazy it can’t be real life, and then write about it as if it is real life”. So they did too.
To this day she is one of the most influential people I have ever met. She helped me discover a talent that I had, and more importantly, something I loved doing.
As years passed by, I obviously was growing up.
I wanted to spend more time hanging out with my middle school friends at the local park than sitting at my desk writing my life away. I still found some time to put the pen to paper, but, unfortunately, not as much time as I had before.
As I grew older, my ideas got smaller. I was becoming more mature and didn’t always want to think of the pigs that could fly or the dragons that blew bubbles or the blue grass with the green sky. I spent my whole high school career without doing any creative writing. The only time I would write is when I was assigned to write an essay about some Shakespeare book that I only read the Sparknotes for, or some important person I learned about in some history class.
My mom would always tell me, “Kelly, you used to love writing all the time, what happened to you?” and I wish I knew the answer to that.
In high school I would sit at my blank laptop screen for hours just trying to think of a sentence, or even a small idea, that would hopefully get the ball rolling. But I struggled... for a while. Eventually, I did think of an idea or a sentence that would get my essay going, but it wasn’t easy anymore.
And it still isn’t easy for me. My freshman year of college was filled with essays about the basic English knowledge or papers about what biology is all about. I would lock myself up in the library for hours cranking out all my homework I had due for the week, but I would always save the worst for last. Writing.
I got frustrated as I attempted to think of words or ideas to get started with. I know that I’m a good writer, I have ideas, dozens of ideas that I’m trying to get out, but for some reason, I fail to put it into words. I would start typing out a paragraph and then immediately erase it. Over and over and over.
It’s a little thing I like to call Writers block. We’ve all struggle with it from time and time again. And to be honest, it f**king sucks.
It’s aggravating, irritating, frustrating, annoying, stressful, and it just straight up sucks.
Everyone has encountered it at some point in their life. It can be a high school essay or a college online assignment or an article for The Odyssey. You have it all perfectly organized in your head, but fail to move your fingers on the key board. You feel stuck.
Knowing that you only have a few days to get your writing finished, looked over, edited, and then wrote over again is extremely stressful. Spending hours and hours looking at the empty word document can leave you with an anxious feeling that minutes are going by as no progress is being made.
But as you sit for a little longer, you eventually get struck with an idea.
You finally think of the first sentence to get the ball rolling, the first word that would let out all of the ideas you had stuck. Without even realizing it, your word count moves from 100 to 2,000 and you’re still not close to being done.
Over coming writers block feels like a giant weight is lifted off your shoulder. All your stress is relieved. All of the talents you thought that you lost can finally come back to your fingertips.
Surprisingly enough, I do encounter writers block all the time. I know coming from a writer of The Odyssey it sounds kind of weird. I know I speak for a lot of us when I say that writing isn’t a walk in the park. It can be stressful but relaxing at the same time. There is no better feeling we have when we start typing and can’t stop until we realize that we’ve almost reached a word count of over a thousand.
So this is my advice to you. Writers block doesn’t last much longer than an hour. Stop stressing yourself out, because honestly, that will make it last longer. Write about things that you like, yes, you. Topics or interests that relate to your life will make it, well, easier.
And my last words of advice, don’t stop writing about the flying pigs or the bubble blowing dragons or the sky that was green and the grass that was blue. A little creativity will go a long way. Believe me.
