Writers Block

Writing is a sadomasochist tendency that people other than other writers don't understand. I am at a bit of an impasse in my writing. I like writing short commentary-like pieces but have been uninspired lately. Not only that, but I can not find a book- fiction or otherwise- that can keep my attention. Reading is always a precursor to writing and it seems I can't even do that these days.

The past two weeks have required a lot of writing for my job. I partially blame that for my writers block. After writing 10 articles for the paper for two weeks in a row I just have nothing left. I have spent evenings watching crime shows online and feeling like a cheating spouse every morning thereafter.

Life is short. Why am I wasting it on watching useless shows when I could be writing or if not writing, at least reading. But nothing is appealing. Everything taste dull , as if I had been smoking for fifty years.

I am longing for art, for inspiration but is just isn’t there. I feel like the lack of art in my life is sucking the oxygen from the rooms where I live. I am short with my kids and just over-all ornery. Nothing is grabbing me by the writing nerve and firing the axons. I am in a funk.

So in a funk, I have decided to write about the funk. It's torturous. I am writing for a living and that is in some way living the dream. But writing for the local paper doesn't get one the recognition that a published book gets you. But I am not the book type, or at least not the novel type. I have no interests in writing a novel. I can't live outside of reality and inside my own head for that long. I have written a thesis and that was as much as I ever want to write on one topic.

For me, envisioning a book, it comes in the form of short anecdotes, maybe of the same place or topic but not a continuous story. My imagination left me in my youth and I have never been able to fully recover it although I have given it a few attempts. My blog, is in essence, my wanna-be book. But so it stands for so many other wanna-be's. In this tribe of wanna-be's, I just feel like another idiot bouncing crap off the keyboard and into cyberspace.

What is more, not only has my imagination dwindled so has my capacity for in depth, critical thought. I used to be smarter. My declining intelligence greatly alarms me. I am used to learning new things. Being out of school now for five years, the longest I have ever been away from academia, is stifling my intellect. But I don't have time to learn new things- I am trying to get through life. I am thinking of taking an online writing course but that is not the same as launching into a new field of study.

I used to write features for glossy magazines-I would like to do that again; it's the kind of writing that I prefer to read and to write. I have been so busy at the paper and with life in general that I have not had time to explore that area of writing.

In life I am at a high point, in writing a low. Or so it feels in recent days. I wish I had something to write about. Ideas flit across my mind like butterflies escaping the net. They never reach my fingertips, are never preserved in jars in the freezer of my hard drive.

Tomorrow or maybe even today will be better. Right now I just feel ANGRY.