Block

Okay. Okay. What is there to write about? Certainly not your five drafts laying around...Maybe not those drafts. You don't want to look at those right now. Should you look up some writing prompts? You're not feeling like any of those. Or should you just start writing?

Write, write, write. Don't think about the perfect sentence just yet. Don't compare yourself to the writers you admire either. You'll get closer to them in time. Words on the page. They stop. You realise you're spending too much time thinking, or that you've blanked out. No worry, you continue on. The tea is starting to become lukewarm and you think about brewing another, but you worry it might not disrupt your concentration. You continue on. 

Now there is a paragraph or two, and you start the next one. Halfway there, a part of you thinks, or should it be one tenth? How much should you be writing in one sitting anyway? That's another distraction. You push it away as you continue spewing words onto the page. You feel as if you're running out of things to say, and the distractions begin coming more frequently. That's no good. But you're still writing. Still writing. 

If only you were in a better condition. Like those days where whatever you want to say flows effortlessly and you just keep writing and writing and before you know it you've already hit your goal but you just want to keep writing. It feels like a struggle now just to come up with a sentence. Maybe if you had gotten more sleep last night, or if that interruption hadn't hit your morning routine. But atleast you're still writing.

A glance at the page. This is more words than you'd expected.You're now encouraged, but a flicker in the back of your mind that this may be temporary. The block will come back soon. Or you'll decide to scrap everything later when you're editing this.

A break. You're already brewing with ideas for some other work you want to write. 

You come back refreshed, ready to finish off this session. As you type the last few words, you think about how blank your mind was before you started.

As people say, action leads to motivation. It turns out that we are really bad at predicting how much we're able to do unless we try. Whatever we may feel at the moment, there is something to be found. It takes a little faith.