Writer's Block
A common misconception is that “Writer’s Block” is the greatest obstacle to an author’s productivity. It is completely untrue. Whilst it may be used as an excuse for goofing off, I don’t think many really suffer from it. It’s just a psychosomatic pseudo disease and a jolly good reason for knocking off work.
I’ve been writing all my life (well, from the age of seven or so) and can honestly say that the malady has never struck. However, I have suffered agonies from two other literary diseases – to whit, bone idleness and one which, with the advent of global warming is becoming an increasingly serious problem, sunshine.
Now I don’t care who it is, nobody wants to sit hunched over a desk when the sun is shining and, regrettably, this month here in France as in much of Europe we have had days of brilliant sunshine, warm temperatures and absolutely no incentive to stay indoors. Productivity has slumped and the much maligned but revered French 35 hour week has had some serious competition in this establishment recently.
We even appear to be in a storm free zone. Meteo France has regularly predicted all sorts of meteorological disasters but the thunderclouds merely skirt us and unload on our neighbouring towns, occasionally visiting during the night.
This does, of course, encourage the grass and other similar stuff to grow like crazy and therefore much of my time is devoted to supervising the cutting and weeding that’s necessary to keep Chez Nous from disappearing into an embryo Amazonian rain forest.
It’s tiring work this supervision, although the gin and tonic does have a restorative effect with the tinkle of ice and lemon in the glass, but it does give me time to reflect on what I will write when we do get a rainy day.
But now I see that my wife has finished cutting the grass and is putting the mower away. I wonder what’s for dinner?
So you see that it’s not just writer’s block that’s the problem, it’s a more complex issue.
Perhaps it will rain tomorrow.
I’ve been writing all my life (well, from the age of seven or so) and can honestly say that the malady has never struck. However, I have suffered agonies from two other literary diseases – to whit, bone idleness and one which, with the advent of global warming is becoming an increasingly serious problem, sunshine.
Now I don’t care who it is, nobody wants to sit hunched over a desk when the sun is shining and, regrettably, this month here in France as in much of Europe we have had days of brilliant sunshine, warm temperatures and absolutely no incentive to stay indoors. Productivity has slumped and the much maligned but revered French 35 hour week has had some serious competition in this establishment recently.
We even appear to be in a storm free zone. Meteo France has regularly predicted all sorts of meteorological disasters but the thunderclouds merely skirt us and unload on our neighbouring towns, occasionally visiting during the night.
This does, of course, encourage the grass and other similar stuff to grow like crazy and therefore much of my time is devoted to supervising the cutting and weeding that’s necessary to keep Chez Nous from disappearing into an embryo Amazonian rain forest.
It’s tiring work this supervision, although the gin and tonic does have a restorative effect with the tinkle of ice and lemon in the glass, but it does give me time to reflect on what I will write when we do get a rainy day.
But now I see that my wife has finished cutting the grass and is putting the mower away. I wonder what’s for dinner?
So you see that it’s not just writer’s block that’s the problem, it’s a more complex issue.
Perhaps it will rain tomorrow.
posted by Diary of a Ghost Writer at 12:15 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home