EXISTENTIAL JANITOR

Only fitting that upon deciding to discuss writer’s block, I was suddenly stricken with a case. The most unmovable block in ages. Solid concrete, a stopper of things creative and fluid in my mind. After dutifully working away the better part of the morning, it snuck up on me as I read back what I had written. Indecision. Doubt. Fear. A shotgun blast of nullifying emotions from origins unknown. What. The. Fuck?

I immediately scrapped what I had written and started over, this time deciding to approach the subject from a different angle. Placing the end at the beginning, shuffling a sentence or two around, clicktyclick-click-clack. Again, the page stares. Take three.

I toss words about trying to relate what’s going on in my head to the faceless reader, but this time I can feel clarity slipping through my hands. I re-read the page and see a jumbled mess of thoughts and ideas, like an over-mix of paint colors until the canvas becomes black. Christ. That’s it. I can’t write anymore! What once came so freely, as free as conversation at a checkout counter, had stopped cold. I now begin to panic because I have a deadline approaching. I decide to give it another go, and this time I only get halfway through the page before giving up the charade.

Writer’s Block. A term I’ve heard tossed about like an urban myth. Did it actually exist? And if so, I wanted to know what the fuck it was, why it happens, and what defines it. For our purposes here, let’s just call it a “creativity block.” An invisible mental force keeping one from creating anything they deem valid, valuable, or at least entertaining in their chosen field of art, and to me, as real as this page in front of me now. I started asking friends of mine who I knew wrote, or created in some form on a continuous basis, if this ever happened to them. Much to my surprise, a few responded no, it didn’t happen to them. Or they just didn’t believe it was real, and therefore it never happened to them. The suspicion that I had lost it, or that I never had it to begin with, was beginning to seem all too real. For me, it’s a sudden flood of consciousness about the task at hand. An acute awareness, or in short, an over-thinking of things. And when that comes on, I’m paralyzed. This is not to say it’s common, or that I can’t go into an idea with intent, or direction. But it’s like becoming the critic halfway through the performance. And always at the most inopportune times, as in the case of The Looming Deadline. How then, to reset my head and start over? Perhaps the answer lies in the notion that writers block isn’t real, and therefore could be “ignored,” so to speak. When I thought about what lay at the core of this egotistical self-indulgence, it was fear. Fear that I couldn’t do the thing because I have no skills, fear that my stuff was garbage, fear that I would hate it, or fear that they would hate it too, because they could see right through me. But really, who was I trying to impress? Who even gave a fuck besides me? I was appointing myself judge, jury and executioner.

So, I began working though the doubt. In spite of myself, I would continue to create trash until something came out of it that clicked, i.e. something I liked. And that’s exactly what I did. In fact, I turned it into my artistic philosophy: forever forward. Write it, revise it, then on to the next one. If it’s crap, it will improve in time, because I am in a constant state of practicing. And damn if that doesn’t work well for me. I still have my days of doubt, but quantity over quality verse. �� �� ��

saves the day. All is well in the uni

EPILOGUE:

Last weekend, I was at a show at the

Garden Amp in Garden Grove, California.

Pressed against the stage during Excel, I was catching bodies as they stage-dived to the thrash apocalypse being laid to waste before us. I took an elbow to the chest, then put all my body weight into slinging the 300lbs, sweaty perpetrator back into the human toilet bowl of swirling bodies. After a quick check to make sure

I hadn’t broken any toes, I turned to my friend Stephanie, a well-known writer and supporter of the arts, also in the pit next to me and said, “So, do you ever get writers block, and if so what do you do to get out of it?” The myth had become obsession.

COVID-19 ADDENDUM: The above was written before the self-quarantine lockdown of mid-March 2020. I was recently asked if isolation had any effect, negative or positive, pertaining to the subject of this particular writing. Thinking about it, I realized I’ve always had an adversarial relationship with the “world outside.” Which is to say, I could never figure out how society works or my place in it. It’s a simultaneously a source of beauty, and one of great pain. At this present moment, I don’t miss it. And being cut-off from it like I am now has only improved my concentration and focus on things that matter most to me in my life. Like my work. Now that the bullshit has been removed, things have never seemed clearer. Thanks for listening. See you on the other-side, whatever that may look like.