Why can't I write?

I used to do it all the time. I have notebooks everywhere filled with essays, short stories, poems, and half-hearted attempts at novels. But lately, I'm having a hard time.

I have all these ideas swimming around in my head. I dream about them at night. I day-dream about them all day. I think about them more than anything else, even politics or school. But when it comes time to sit down and actually WRITE -- nothing. Nothing at all.

What is wrong with me?

Start small. Retype some of the poems and short essays from your handwritten notebook and edit them. Then try and write a complete short story, say, 3500-5000 words. Edit it. Make sure it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Then do another. And another.

Set aside a few consecutive hours each week and force yourself to write for those hours with no distractions. Turn off DU or other websites that draw your attention, then put on music that spurs your creativity and get to work.

If you have a productive few hours you might only write one page, but you'll be happy with it, and you'll have a story start. Then set aside the same block next week. Use your notebook to capture, snatches of dialogue, settings, descriptions, plot points ideas for that story between writing sessions.

Sometimes, when I sit down to write creatively, words fail me. But if I sit down with a note pad, my favorite pen (because I'm a pen snob) and my preferred beverage, then tell my self I'm just going to play with words and put thoughts on paper, what ever they are, things just start to flow. It's almost like giving your creative self a playground and permission to play.

On the other hand, what seems to block me most are the stresses of my daily life - dealing with in-laws, teenagers, my business, my unfulfilled hopes. There are days where I have to get that all off my chest before I can write. That also means a notebook, my favorite pen and preferred beverage. But this time, I purge. I bitch, complain, whine, argue, cry, scream - all on paper. Well almost all on paper. When it's all done, I can sit down to write without those things that stress me shoving my creativity aside like a bully on the playground looking for attention.