‘Round about 1999, I had a terrible case of writer’s block. I didn’t write a thing that I didn’t hate for six months or so. When I refer to this episode, I always call it the Bad Nasty Evil Writer’s Block, because it made me so miserable that when I finally did start writing again (and not hating it from word one) my coworkers noticed, to the point that my manager said, “You’re writing again, aren’t you?”
Since then I read an article (which I think I’ve mentioned and linked to before, but here it is again) about how writer’s block is basically an invention of the Romantics, when the process of creation was thought to be passive, something received by the artist, instead of active, something done by the artist. The gist of the article is that writer’s block is another name for stress or depression or fear of failure or fear of success.
Since reading this, I’d decided I don’t believe in writer’s block. I didn’t feel there’s a need to put a fancy name on what’s perfectly normal: people get stressed, people get depressed, people get worn down by everyday concerns. Accepting that this is normal and will pass has helped me a lot in keeping the bad writing days to a minimum for the past several years.