My Words Don't Work

What do you do when you're struggling to write? You write about having trouble with writing.

My words do not work and it is making me sad so here is a whiny post about writing being hard. 

I have loved writing since before I was even really capable of writing. What Maya? Have you read back what you just wrote? Yes, yes I have. Let me explain. A few months ago I was going through some old boxes in my Mums house and found a stack of story books my mother had scribed for me in the year of 1999. I was three. I hadn't even started school. My attempt at writing my name on the cover involved a backwards S. I could barely make marks on the page. But I clearly had a desire to share words. I was a little confused by exactly what these books were and my lovely Mum explained that I had wanted to write books so I dictated the stories and she wrote them down. And it was very clear from their poor quality that the words were very much my own. But I loved story telling and my Mother encouraged that. She helped me write books. She even bound them for me with ribbons. What a cool Mum. How cool my Mum is aside, writing has been a part of my life forever. But I'm still not very good at it. 

I suffer with horrendous writers block. In fact, my words very rarely function. The block always comes when my mind is full. But I cannot transfer those thoughts into coherent words. The block is self-perpetuating in that I become obsessed with not being able to write. All I can get onto the page is 'my words don't work'. That is not what I want to write about. I want to write about the feeling in my solar plexus when I meet new people. I want to feel release as I describe the thick fog in the forefront of my mind that won't shift. The same fog that stops the words from forming fully. I want to pour emotion onto a page and not think about it ever again. I want to write poems that rhyme and poems that don't and poems that feel like a punch in the gut when you read them. But all I get is 'my words don't work', out of kilter rhythms and a sense of everything I create being 'not quite enough.' 

This is depressing but seemingly a reality of being writer and more broadly a creator. Creative minds are not tidy or consistent. There is no deep or logical conclusion to this blog post. I wish there was. I wish I could provide a cure for writers block or at least a theory on why it happens. I wish I could tell you that the pauses make what we create more valuable. Or that quality is better than quantity. But in reality creativity is sporadic by nature. When your words don't work it is important to remind yourself of the times they have and have faith they will return to you.