Michal Lemberger
The dark and dirty truth here is that I don't have a way to deal with writer's block. I've suffered from it, for years at a time in some cases. It feels awful, and I mean that physically: it's as if there's a part of my body, a limb, say, that wants to move, to be used, but instead lies inert. The urge to write is there. Even the discipline to sit down and write is there. And still, I end up with what amounts to a collection of words on a page that don't add up to anything.
And yet. I did manage to write a book. It took decades for me to finally do it, so I must have figured something out, right? I'm not sure that's true, but I will say that in those decades of thinking about other things, learning other things, and reading other things, I was still sitting at my computer playing with words, so that when the stories that I wrote started coming together, I had the benefit of decades of information that I had taken in and years of collecting words on the page. When I say information, I don't only mean subject matter, but also more technical stuff: style, voice, pacing, and more.
It's been a year since I finished writing my last book. I feel like I'm starting all over again with random collections of words on the page. It hasn't gotten easier. There are many days when I feel empty of ideas, images, even language, but I keep sitting down at my computer. I hope it doesn't take another decade to push through it this time. In the meantime, I keep reading. I keep learning, and I keep thinking.
And yet. I did manage to write a book. It took decades for me to finally do it, so I must have figured something out, right? I'm not sure that's true, but I will say that in those decades of thinking about other things, learning other things, and reading other things, I was still sitting at my computer playing with words, so that when the stories that I wrote started coming together, I had the benefit of decades of information that I had taken in and years of collecting words on the page. When I say information, I don't only mean subject matter, but also more technical stuff: style, voice, pacing, and more.
It's been a year since I finished writing my last book. I feel like I'm starting all over again with random collections of words on the page. It hasn't gotten easier. There are many days when I feel empty of ideas, images, even language, but I keep sitting down at my computer. I hope it doesn't take another decade to push through it this time. In the meantime, I keep reading. I keep learning, and I keep thinking.
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