drmstream[writing]

Two things have hap­pened over the past week: I let my daily rou­tine of post­ing here slip; and, I’ve gone back to a note­book from last year to visit the two pages that are dupli­cated above. I’m try­ing to under­stand how they are related. The notes were the begin­ning of an essay on writer’s block. I’ve […]

Know that it is good to work. Work with love and think of lik­ing it when you do it. It is easy and inter­est­ing. It is a priv­i­lege. There is noth­ing hard about it except your anx­ious van­ity and fear of fail­ure. Bar­bara Euland, If You Want to Write Around the time I dis­cov­ered that more […]

I worked my way out of a 20-year pho­bia about writ­ing and now I don’t know what’s what. When I write with focus and sim­plic­ity, I feel the energy of under­stand­ing. I fin­ish the ses­sion glad that I wrote some­thing. Then a stretch passes where I don’t get the glad feel­ing and I don’t write […]

I am not a writer. I am not good enough to be a writer. I don’t have what it takes to be a writer. I want to be a writer. I am not an artist. I want to feel like an artist. I can remem­ber what it felt like to try to write, before I […]

When I hear the words “writer’s block,” I think of some­thing that is big and for­mi­da­ble. The image is wrench­ing: an imag­i­na­tion has been blocked by an organic, but chimeri­cal force. A per­son wants to do some­thing badly, but each time they start off to do it, they are thwarted. It’s like Sisy­phus strain­ing to […]