'Block' for Christmas

I sometimes feel like stamping my feet and screaming ‘I want to be a writer’ as loudly and as whiny as possible, because I feel so frustrated. At the moment, I’m feeling tired and ‘blocked’ creatively. I just can’t envisage the world I’m trying to write about. I sit, staring at a blank computer screen and can’t seem to connect with what I’m doing. I’m battling two instincts – the first to have a break and try not to write anything until I feel ‘better’, and the second to just keep going, and write anything, even if it is dire, in the hope that something will eventually click into place.

I’ve been doing some research into great writers, and, of course, all of them had to do other occupations before they got their first book published. But what it doesn’t tell you in these biographies is when they found the time to write their masterpieces in between being court transcribers, ministers, journalists, shoe polishers and the like. But then, I guess Dickens et al didn’t have the distractions of television and computer games when they came home from work, and only had their own stories to escape into. I read an article about a fairly new contemporary novelist who is working on her second novel and has to get up at 4am to write for a couple of hours before commuting to her full-time ‘day’ job. I don’t think I could do that, I really couldn’t. I remember when I was in the sixth form, and I’d get home at 3pm and go straight upstairs and write for a couple of hours… I really need to stop reminiscing and work out a way to do that now without having to get up before the birds do.

On a separate note, I found this website that contains free e-books of pretty much everything that is no longer in copyright in the USA. So far I’ve downloaded a couple of Charles Dickens novels, Daniel Deronda by George Eliot and The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. So if you want to catch up with your favourite Victorian novelists, go to:

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

This will most certainly be my last blog entry before the holiday, so I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I will be back soon though, full of turkey and gluten-free minced pies!
Lucy :-)