I recently interviewed author Ksenia Anske for my
indie novelist's blog, and the question of writer's block was posed. I
was quite impressed with Ksenia's response. Here's what she had to say...
Q: Do you ever suffer through writer’s block? If so,
how do you fight it?
A: I don't believe in writer's block. I believe it's
a convenient myth to hide behind to justify your procrastination. Ever heard of
an accountant having an accounting block? Neither have I. Writing is a job and
most days it's tedious and exhausting and boring. The glamour around writing is
yet another myth concocted by wannabes, I would suspect, or those who believe
that the process of birthing a book is like waving a magic wand and having it
pop out of thin air complete with a muse carrying it to you on a silver
platter. Unfortunately, it's not like that at all. It takes a great deal of
discipline and focus to sit alone, day in and day out, with your own
inadequacies and deficiencies and flaws staring you in the face from the
screen, or from a piece of paper if you write by hand or type. No one you can
blame for it but yourself. It's hard to stomach, this truth, so people chicken
out and then tell their friends they have writer's block and their friends feel
sorry for them and so on. Aside from this little treatise I gave you just now,
I do get scared of not knowing what happens next and I end up staring at the
screen for too long without producing words, so I get up and get a cup of tea
or eat some dried squirrels for a snack (I catch them myself), and by the time
I'm back I usually have a good idea what to write next. That's as much as I've
been blocked.
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