Writer's Block

Have you ever noticed that you can be having The Most wonderfully creative time in your life, then wake up one morning and suddenly can’t string two words together that make sense? Humans identify this phenomenon as writer’s block, but I suspect there is something much more sinister happening.
Now this is what bothers me. About the time I think, no I know, I could write a daily column or at the least a weekly column for a newspaper because I have so many ideas flowing so fast that I can barely get them on paper, bingo I wake up and nothing – nada -- no ideas, no flow, just a blank void. Now we all know those ideas are out there somewhere. Surely they aren’t sucked up through one of those black holes into outer space. Or maybe they are. Perhaps that is the answer to the age old question of black holes. Possibly black holes are just giant suction machines sucking ideas right out of our brains while we are sleeping.
…Or maybe we never really have an idea of our own in the first place. Perchance beyond the black hole is where all ideas are filed away for future reference, and those moments of clarity when creativity flows at warped speed are just blips in time when the universe siphons out a little creative juice to unsuspecting humans making them think they have been brilliantly inspired.
I can visualize it all now – the Head Librarian (excuse the pun) sitting at a desk in the dark, dank Universal Library beyond the Black Hole directing all the little Library assistants about with a casual wave of the hand. “Now let’s see – Oh Yes, there is Ilene. Why don’t you slip her some juicy ideas? See what she can do with them. Will she write them down? Will she share them with others?” Then they all watch with baited breath to see what happens. And Ilene, true to form, rushes around greedily sucking up everything they dribble into her brain, scrambling to put it into words that will feed the minds and hearts of her unsuspecting audience. Then just as she begins to think she has some potential as a writer, that great Librarian smugly issues the order. “Pull the plug!” And whap, those creative juices dry up quicker than one can blink an eye.
Can’t you just see it all from here – that great Librarian and all the sniveling little assistants rolling in the aisles, laughing hysterically at their great cosmic joke on Ilene or any other unsuspecting human that they have chosen to taunt that particular day.
Seriously though, I have always believed, along with the great King Solomon, that there is “nothing new under the sun.” That everything ever thought, let alone written, has already been thought or written. That there are only a certain number of universal ideas known throughout the ages and at one time or another, someone else has had the same exact thought or idea. The difference is that when we receive this information for ourselves, we utilize our own experiences and express the ideas from that viewpoint. Therefore, we believe, as do our readers, that we have a completely new thought, but in reality someone else at some other point in time has just expressed it from their own perspective. Another cosmic joke, I'm sure. Teachers call it “busy work.”
Nevertheless, sometimes those ideas just flow and sometimes they don’t. I really don’t know why or what one should do when a column is due and the creativity is all dried up and writer’s block has us in a choke hold -- except maybe ramble about the Universal Library of Ideas hidden beyond human reach and mystery of the great Black Holes and just wait until that ostentatious Head Librarian issues the order to once again whet our appetite with a few juicy tidbits of ideas and start our creative juices salivating once again.
©2005 Ilene Madrigal