Inspiration VS Writer's Block

[queenoftheskies]

For me, it's all a part of the same brain.

Of course, I should explain that my definitions of inspiration and writer's block might be different from the definitions many people use.

To me, inspiration is when everything is falling into place and easy and I'm really on a roll as far as writing goes. I can feel the plot and the characters and everything is good and wonderful.

But, writer's block, for me, is NOT the inability to write or the lack of words to write. For me, it's a state of being. I still write. I still have words to write. But, the words are harder to extract and I feel detached, sometimes, from my writing.

Inspiration is when my back brain takes control and gushes words onto the paper with such enthusiasm that it's hard to keep up. Everything makes sense and fits just right and it all ties together.

Writer's block is when the front brain is doing the writing alone. Front brain can write, just like back brain, but it works better TOGETHER with back brain, because back brain has the ability to work on ideas in "background mode" like a computer. Front brain focuses on the task at hand.

So, what causes the phenomenon of writer's block? For me, it's usually (but not always) stress, exhaustion, illness, something that takes a great deal of my concentration...like disasters. :)

It doesn't always happen and, thankfully, it no longer cripples me completely. At it's worst, I lose a few days (or weeks in the case of the work disaster last June), but mostly, I keep plugging. The writing just doesn't flow and front brain is having to REASON everything out.

I'm not as happy with it at the time, but when I go back and look at it, the surprising thing is that it still seems to blend together fairly well, for the most part, with what I write when I'm inspired. I just write MORE when I'm inspired and get it down FASTER.

So, the goal now is to keep the back brain from going into hiding whenever something bad happens. I can understand it shutting down when I'm really tired, I guess.

But, if I could just tap it ALL the time, life would be much easier.

Fortunately, it's ON more of the time than it's OFF these days, so that's a good thing. I really can't complain too much.