While trying to write something, we
generally face a common problem. What to write? You sit at your table, uncap
your pen and discover that everything you wanted to write about has simply
vanished from your mind. This situation or condition of difficulty of coming up
with an idea or being unable to produce quality work is commonly known as
creative block. If associated with writing, it is called writer's block.
If
you are suffering from writer's block, I assure you that you're not alone. F.
Scott Fitzgerald and Herman Melville are some prime examples of writers who
could not come up with an idea while writing. Fitzgerald mainly blamed his
personal life for his “loss of the muse” while Melville quit writing for
a few years after he wrote “Moby-dick.”
Writer's
block primarily manifests among the writers in stress for their personal or
professional life. Sometimes writer's block show up as creative problems that
originate within an
author's work itself. A writer may run out
of inspiration, or be distracted by other events. It can also be caused by
adverse circumstances in a writer's life or career, like physical illness,
depression, financial pressures or a sense
of failure.
The
condition was first described in 1947 by psychoanalyst Edmund Bergler, who did
extensive research work on writer's block. Some researchers have also suggested
that writer's block could be more than just a mentality. Under stress, a human
brain naturally shifts control from the cerebral cortex to the limbic system.
The limbic system controls mainly the instinctual processes, such as
instinctual responses to fear or aggression and behavior that is based on "deeply
ingrained training". The limited input from the cerebral cortex means
a person's creative processes be replaced by the behaviors associated with the
limbic system. The person is often unaware of the change, which may lead them
to believe they are creatively "blocked".
The
writer and neurologist Alice W. Flaherty argued that literary creativity is a
function of specific areas of the brain, and that block may be the result of
brain activity being disrupted in those areas in her book 'The Midnight
Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain'.
The usual causes of writer's block include fear of criticism and
perfectionism. Also immature ideas for writing may slow a writer down enough
for her to encounter a creative block.
Now,
coping with writer's block is a tough fight which does not have one highway to
take. Every writer copes in a different way. Writing is an art, not an exact
science. Also since every person approaches writing in their own way, so would
be their approach to writer's block. All I can suggest here is to meet it
head-on. The trick is not to give in to despair but to keep writing doggedly.
As somebody once said, “You overcome writer's block by writing”.
Runjun Devi
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