Saturday, March 25, 2017

Is This What They Call Writer's Block?

I created this blog about a week ago, and at that time, I felt inspired to write. I have yet to write anything, a blog post, a diary entry, another sentence to my NaNo story. The processing of writing shouldn't seem very difficult. You essentially move your hands in specific shapes to produce letters, which combine to produce words. Easy-peasy, right?

But what seems to be lacking is the motivation or perhaps drive to write. Many of my college and high school classmates have started to write blogs, and I secretly follow them manually, rather than adding them to a blog list or RSS feed. I would prefer that they don't know that I'm following them. Funnily enough, I didn't want them to know that I have blogged many times before. I started a long time ago, back in 2012 or so, and I have archived blogs and made them private, out of fear that word would get out. How many of my acquaintances found my blogs anyway? That should be the real question. If they found them, they didn't not tell me that they did.

Thinking about the lack of motivation to write, I am reminded of a tweet I recently saw about Kafka's diaries.

The process of writing is difficult, but the mechanisms of writing are easy.

I wonder if because I don't want anyone to see my writing that I hinder myself from writing. "Who is your audience?" No one. If no one is supposed to read it, then why write it in the first place? It's hard to open up and write because putting your writing out there makes you vulnerable. As Lindy West has written, commenters online can be cruel. It's easier to protect my insides, my heart, my soul from all kinds of people by just not being open in the first place.

That is how I've always lived. Keep quiet. Don't attract attention. Keep your opinions to yourself because putting yourself out there gets you hurt. It attracts that wrong kind of people in your life.

But if I never write at all, my insides become an unorganized mess. Words help to articulate, change, and strengthen my beliefs. To keep my strength and to keep my heart strong, I must write.