Blockety-Block-Blocked

a writer's diary

Writing is a curious practice.

There are days when the words flow, and others where the cursor’s blink grows so menacing that the only sensible move is to walk away.

There are times when deadlines, whether contractual or self-imposed, feel thrillingly urgent. Or else, as a working writer once cautioned me, “like having homework for the rest of your life.”

On days when the words won’t come, I’ve found it helps to trick myself into writing something — anything. Just write a piece of nonsense, I think, something no one will ever see. It can be messy or rageful or gobbledygook. Like morning pages, at any hour.

To that end, this week’s letter is a bit of a departure from the usual essay, in that it came about via this sort of trickery. As I push onward with the novel, panic and self-doubt (and distraction and procrastination) lurk around every turn. If this reads like the diary entry of a woman slightly undone by the process, well, that’s because it is.

---

I am blocked.

Blocked! Blockety-block-blocked.

Not in a digestive sense. Nor an emotional one — I just cycled through a bevy of rather acute feelings (anger, sadness, envy) as served up by the algorithm (via politics, photos of shelter dogs, videos of people who did NOT seem blocked and thus shared freely on the internet).

If anything, I’ve started to wonder if perhaps I feel too much, the emotions as swift and strong as a herd of migrating wildebeest. (Fun fact: a group of wildebeest is called a “confusion.” How appropriate is that?) But feel as I might, I cannot write, cannot put pen to paper, cannot string words together to create something new and different and worthy of consumption. This is especially problematic, as I’ve gone and made that my job.

I’ve developed a bad habit of staring out the window, like a cat. I watch the cars, the people on the sidewalk, the birds in the sky — a soundless landscape unfolding before me like a Richard Scarry picture book. I wonder where everyone is headed, imagine their inner monologues, pen conversations in my mind.

It was always the Richard Scarry corn cob car for me.

I picture the couple arguing over GPS directions, the person practicing the speech they’re about to deliver to their unrequited love, the woman ferrying a carful of miniature poodles named after classic TV characters.

Imaginative? Sure. Writing? No.

When I’ve had enough, I abscond to a coffee shop where I historically get a lot done. But the playlist is straight out of an ex-boyfriend’s car — upbeat, a little techno, a dash of pop, trying just a touch too hard. Said boyfriend only listened to happy music, he once explained, on the first and only occasion when I tried to play deejay. If he listened to sad music, to searching music, to anything that didn’t sound like the soundtrack to helium balloons floating in a jaunty arc across a clear blue sky, it summoned all the uncomfortable emotions simmering just below the surface. And he didn’t like to experience those things, he said. He preferred not to feel anything at all.

The truth hung in the atmosphere. A red flag flapped in the breeze. And yet I stayed for far longer than was advisable, serenaded by Empire of the Sun.

That was years ago, and yet, the coffee shop playlist brings it all back — summons the uncomfortable emotions simmering just below the surface. What was he so afraid of? I think. These feelings, they aren’t so bad.

Focus, I urge myself. The cursor blinks away. Focus.

What is writer’s block, anyway? I decide to make a list. (Lists! Procrastination masquerading as productivity.) Here is what I land on:

Fear.
Avoidance.
Anxiety.
Apathy.
Panic.
Pressure.
Lack of trust — in self, process, public. Those pesky trolls.
Lack of belief.

The thing is, sometimes writing feels…icky. It requires confronting whatever I’ve been avoiding. Putting myself out there. Sitting with discomfort. Processing complicated emotions. Dancing with the possibility of failure. Shimmying onto the proverbial branch of vulnerability and discovering I’m alone out there. Or worse, that my only company are the piranhas of shame, criticism, and rejection, circling beneath me.

Creativity can be liberating — as joyful as singing, as natural as breath. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

And sometimes? I don’t want to feel icky.

Sometimes, I don’t want to feel anything at all.

Which, now that I think about it, sounds a lot like that avoidant ex-boyfriend.

Isn’t that life? If you try hard enough, which is to say not that hard at all, you uncover all the ways in which you were a stunning hypocrite. Like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, but with psychological hangups.

I still haven’t written shit.

I am a chaotic nightmare, I think. But, like, a lovable one. (I am trying to be kinder to myself.) I’m not perfect. I never will be. And neither will anything, ever — the circumstances or my words or anyone else’s. Especially in a subjective world, where beauty and value are ours to interpret wherever we like.

So what’s the harm in trying?

And so, I try.

I lean into the feelings. Have a special written conversation with myself. Fool the muscles into firing, the fingers into typing. Trick the fear into hibernating until further notice.

Once words are on the page, I exhale, feeling like a plane on the runway, finally cleared for take-off.

It is unnatural for humans to fly — disconcertingly so! — and yet, we do it every day. While evidence waits in the wings, belief makes it possible. Maybe that’s the work for today, for every day. To clear a path. To do our best. To suspend our disbelief until we, too, make it off the ground.

---

By popular vote, our first-ever virtual book club meeting (to discuss Mind Magic, manifesting, and being a person in the world) will be held on Sunday, March 30th at 12p.m. ET.

If you’d like to join, please R.S.V.P. here to receive the Zoom invite.

This is free and open to all paid subscribers (yes, even if you didn’t finish the book, and even if you don’t want to verbally participate — this is a no-pressure environment :).

Looking forward to seeing you soon! ❤️

---

Card of the Week

Here is this week’s card for the collective, as well as some thoughts to carry into the days ahead. As always, this reading is not meant to be predictive, but is offered as a path to reflection. Read it, ponder it, journal about it, use it however you’d like. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

The Fountain Tarot, illustrated by Jonathan Saiz

At first glance, the Five of Wands shows a bunch of people fighting with sticks. And yes, like all fives, it carries a message about some form of conflict — disagreements, scuffles, skirmishes, power struggles, and all those scenarios that make for excellent TV drama (and not-so-excellent reality).

Yet as far as this week’s message is concerned, I don’t interpret it as a fight between you and a group of individuals, but rather an internal struggle.

I often liken the characters on this card to the various parts that exist within us (almost like the animated emotions in the Inside Out movies). Perhaps they symbolize disparate selves — the roles we play at home or work, in public and private — attempting to coexist. Perhaps they speak to different hopes, paths, or interests that are vying for your time and attention. Perhaps it speaks to your true identity, and how it longs to break free from the pressures and expectations placed on us by the outside world. Perhaps you are feeling creatively blocked, limited by external forces or from standing in your own way.

However we interpret it, the energy behind the Five of Wands is less about combat, and more akin to stuckness. It’s a feeling of frustration. Strain. Tension. Anxiety. We’re trying to move forward, to grow as people in the world, but there are all these damn wands in the way.

There is energy, says the Five of Wands, that isn’t being utilized. It isn’t being directed, funneled, unleashed. It’s being contained, held in, restricted.

The question is, why?

The iconic Smith-Waite deck, with art by Pamela Colman Smith

This week’s card wants us to release (some of) the conflict residing within us.

That will mean something different for each of us, but no matter how it resonates within you, the Five reminds us that we are able to express ourselves fully. We can access the infinite wisdom inherent within us. We can release what is not ours to carry. There is no need to hold back, nor to limit the expression of our knowledge, work, talent, or creativity.

The Five teaches that we are not doomed to repeat the patterns that have come before us, whether they stem from our lineage or experience or learnings. As we release them, we may define our own preferences, boundaries, and beliefs. And when those inevitable moments of conflict arise within us, we are encouraged to speak to all our selves — including our fears, our anxieties, our inner critics, the masks we’ve picked up at every stage and heartbreak as a means of protection — and remind them that we are safe, we are loved, we are capable, and we’ve got this.

This week’s message asks: How do we — how do you — entertain conflict, primarily when it dwells within us?

And rather than focus on how we manage or diffuse it, it wants to know how we might befriend it. How might we approach it with curiosity — and listen to what it has to say?

Our stress, fear, and anxiety evolved to protect us, but they are just one facet of the kaleidoscope within, just one member of our internal team. If anxiety goes unchecked — if no one asks it to play — it has a way of trying to run the show. But if we greet it, acknowledge it, and thank it for its service, it will retreat to its place on the sidelines. Not forever, but long enough for us to see clearly, express ourselves fully, and move in the direction that is most aligned with who we wish to be. Long enough for us to know that we are safe, we are loved, we are capable — and we’ve got this.

---

As always, thank you for reading. x