Flobo here and another writer’s blog is coming your way!
In the beginning, the great authors of yesteryear would struggle to come up with that next story. You know, the great novel that everyone has (supposed to have) read? Writer’s block was a problem for those guys and gals even back then. It took a lot of strain to find time to put pen to paper. Some persevered but most didn’t. Those that did were cut from a certain cloth.
Writer’s block is something that writers deal with even to this day. The problem gets worsened by the strides we’ve made as a society in regards to technology.
You see, I’ve heard stories of that struggling writer that had to go to the wilderness for a weekend to bang out that next plot point. In present times, there is no “wildnerness”, per se. Sure there’s miles of rural areas and places that I would surely die in if left to my own devices, but there’s an almost constant link to civilization.
This past week, I started a new job in an office. Pretty awesome gig, and I’m grateful I have it. I realized my second week in that I had my E-mail open on my workstation, my cellular phone, my laptop and on my tablet running at the same time. When the new mail notifications strolled in, I felt like a chicken with the head cut off, trying to clear the messages from all the machines manually. It was a sad sight. (Sad because it was my personal e-mail and it could’ve waited rather than my work one). I was wired, ready to respond to that Groupon alert at a moment’s notice. Because of this, I almost never gave my mind a chance to wander. Even though this is good as far as focusing for the day job, it stifles the creative side.
What to do? Well the easy answer would be to become a hermit in a cave somewhere. Radical, but entirely possible. May I suggest leaving your laptop, tablet, or cellular phone at home one day? I can hear you cringing from over here and that is kind of my point. Maybe in order to jump start ourselves creatively, we may have to shift our lives on the logical level as well.
–Flobo
Flobo Boyce 