The Brains Behind Writer's Block

Sometimes I go into a deep state of writer's block. It's a time where I fail to communicate what I want to say on any of my blogs. It doesn't necessarily mean that I don't have anymore ideas, it's just that writing them is really hard. For the past week and a bit, I have come up with almost 15 ideas for rants. I'm big on complaining or passionate about certain causes. I would start to write it out then NOTHING. It's like my brain was trying to tell me to "Stop, you are writing shit." Then I lose my motivation to write. When I first started out writing on this blog, it was quite easy to write. I could write pretty much what I was thinking at the time. If I wanted to rant about wogs, I would/could write about it instantly. Recently it has become more methodical where I have to plan it out a little. Not in the structure of the rant, but the research and whether the rant has enough substance in it. Whether or not my rants have any real substance or merit to them is another topic. What I'm trying to get at is that annoying feeling of not being able to express yourself. It's a hard thing to do, especially in this blogging environment. You needto have a point to everything! Recently I was discussing to Justin about my recent attack of the dreaded WRITERS BLOCK. He came up with an intresting idea, write a post about writers block. It is an intresting concept. Very ironic too. I hope that this post will help me get out of my little writing slump. So here it is, a post about Writers Block! It took me only a few minutes on google to get all the information I ever needed on Writers Block. After reading about 7 of these articles I realised that there were several theories as to the sypmtoms and causes of writers block. What I found most intresting while going through all the different theories was a condition called Hypergraphia. Hypergraphabia is the medical term for an overwhelming desire to write. "Hypergraphics produce vast amounts of text, much of it on personally meaningful philosophical or autobiographical subjects. "Unabomber" Theodore Kacyznski '62 offers one example, Flaherty says, and maudlin diarists another. But all hypergraphics are motivated by the same thing: "a strong, conscious, internal drive—say, pleasure—rather than an external influence [such as money]." Flaherty herself has experienced hypergraphic periods, triggered by postpartum mood disorder following the traumatic deaths of her premature twins. "For 10 days I was filled with sorrow," she writes. "Then suddenly, as if someone had thrown a switch, I was wildly agitated, full of ideas, all of them pressing to be written down. The world was flooded with meaning. I believed I had unique access to the secrets of the Kingdom of Sorrow." After reading this excerpt from a link to the Harvard Magazine Article on Authorial Synapses I thought to myself "Thats it! Thats the solution to my problem! I need to get me some Hypergraphic action!" Hypergraphics, how cool does that sound...Hyper, graphic...hyper and graphic. That would make a sweet computer game company name, HYPERGRAPHICS & co. Anyway, turns out that Hypergraphaia isn't necesarily a good thing. The condition just makes you write MORE. Doesn't mean that you are going to write lots of quality material. Therefore, with Hypergraphaia I could put in the hard yards of writing piles upon piles of crap, only for it to be...well, CRAP! You see, it's only useful for people that have the ability to turn out some good shit. So what causes this aforementioned kick-ass sounding condition? "Creative writers in general, she argues, are profoundly affected and presumably inspired by the artist's trademark albatross, suffering: bereavement, illness, exile, "narcissistic injury" to self-esteem, adolescence, war, and unhappy love. "Suffering triggers limbic system and temporal lobe activity through their roles in emotion," Flaherty writes, "and increases the desire to write and communicate." So I have to be pretty much in the gutter to make myself write a bit more eh? Does that mean every post on a blog have to be a whinge session? I'll keep that in mind if I want to rid myself of my current condition. I have to be sad, depressed or in a state of mourning to be able to write an excrutiating large amount of CRAP. Heh, yeah right. Ironically, this state of depression can be counter-productive, go figure. "But suffering can also prevent writing: writer's block, she says, is not really the opposite of hypergraphia. "Writers can be hypergraphic and blocked at the same time," she explains, mentioning the graduate student who crafts lengthy e-mails but just can't finish the dissertation. "Being unable to communicate can cause depression, which in turn can cause an inability to communicate." Now I'm confused. Suffering can either: a) Make me inspired to write lots b) Make me unable to communicate EVEN MORE, which causes greater suffering! AHHHH! That has totally confused the nuts out of me, which is probably going to reduce my ability to communicate even more. So I guess theres no such thing as an overall cure to Writer's Block. Everybody has their own form of treatment, and I sure hope as hell suffering isnt a stimulus for writing in my case or else im screwed. So what have I learned from this intrepid journey of discovery and conquest? ABSOLUTELY JACK SQUAT. I know the cause of writers block, to a certain extent. But I haven't found any solution to it except get depressed a bit. What a lovely world of good that does to me. In my attempt to find a treatment for writers block I have written one of the most useless posts ever created in mankind. This may be onset Hypergraphaia coming on. Related Links Support for authors with writers block The Harvard Magazine article on Writer's Block CNN report on multi-tasking