on "writer's block"

[piranha]

and similar artistic getting-stuckness -- i was reading about rituals other people do to get themselves going again, which was interesting, in the sense of "what amazing tricks people play on/with their own minds". and i was thinking about how odd it is that i don't have this problem at all, just like i am also never bored ("never" in the sense that, left to my own devices, it doesn't happen. i sometimes get bored when i am stuck in a situation where i am waiting on somebody else and can't escape; though it feels less like what i imagine boredom feels like than it feels anxious, restive, fidgety).

the really amusing part of it was that i realized that i have something in common with those people anyway: i sometimes need to use similar rituals, just for what seems to be the opposite reason. i can be stymied by an excess of ideas, by an inability to pick what i want to concentrate on next. the white page doesn't scare me by making my mind go blank, it can scare me a little by making my mind race too fast to stop at any specific idea. but in general i really have no problem writing when it's up to me -- only when it becomes an obligation, and that's a different kettle of fish. when it comes to other artistic endeavours, however, i am often scared to start on any particular idea because i might not be doing it justice, because i do not have enough trust in myself, in my notion of what is important about the idea. i wonder whether this is not actually a very common cause for artistic block that simply expresses itself differently.

Comments

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

and i was thinking about how odd it is that i don't have this problem at all, just like i am also never bored ("never" in the sense that, left to my own devices, it doesn't happen. i sometimes get bored when i am stuck in a situation where i am waiting on somebody else and can't escape; though it feels less like what i imagine boredom feels like than it feels anxious, restive, fidgety).

Exactly so for me.