You know, many writers really don’t like to write. I think this the chief complaint of so many. They hate to write; they do it under the compulsion that makes any artist the victim he is, but they loathe the process of sitting down trying to turn thoughts into reasonable sentences.

The above quote was taken from an interview with Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) in 1964 by Roy Newquist. That small piece of information caused me to pause and re-read it several times. I had never though that I hated to write. I thought that I was more afraid that the words would not come to me or that the RIGHT words would not find their way onto the page, that I really wasn’t a writer, that I was playing some kind of game with myself and I really had no talent at all. Writers write and I’ve spent a good deal of my time the last few years avoiding any kind of writing. I’ve called it writers block when maybe it’s just that I hate to write and at the same time I’m compelled to write, any kind of writing, just as long as I’m writing.

Yet, I don’t really want to set down and write but I continue to find myself doing just that, writing, but not the kind of writing I really want to do. My muse keeps prodding me, sending me into the underworld of floating words just waiting for me to capture their essence and mold them into a meaningful story. Expand and contract, the drummer beats to the rhythm of the expanding and contracting words surrounding me and I’m lost in the fluidness of the beat and call it confused.

Confused.

Being unable to think with clarity or act with understanding and intelligence. Lacking logical order or sense: chaotic.

Floating words have no external structure, no definable order. A writer makes sense of the senseless … or do they?

Chaotic.

A condition or place of great disorder or confusion. A disorderly mass; a jumble: the disordered state of unformed matter and infinite space. Lacking a visible order or organization: completely unordered and unpredictable.

Organize and predict victory. Paste the words into an organized, predictable outline and claim victory over the chaos of structureless words floating within the beat, expanding and contracting in a disordered state of infinite space.

Unpredictable.

Something difficult or impossible to foretell or foresee; unknown.

Unknown.

I am blind.

There it is, the big unknown. Alone it can stake its claim on the bravest souls, surrounding them in liquid fear until they drown. Or do they? Certainly not all fall pray to their own fears. What makes them different? More courage? Probably not. More faith? Maybe. A stronger desire? Probably. But certainly they write, regardless of the confusion, the chaos, the unpredictable, the unknown and the drowning fear. They write because to not write is not an option. And sometimes magic happens and the desire to create magic is greater than the chaos driving the fear.

So, I don’t hate to write. I hate knowing I can’t control the words, that I can’t know the story before it’s written, that I can’t map out the process in minute detail and I hate knowing my fear has drowned the writer in me.

Can I write now? I don’t know.

The interview with Harper Lee can be found Here.

I finally had some breathing room yesterday after spending the last few months on a major redesign of a site I manage. While I did need to write something for this poor neglected blog, I just couldn’t find anything to write about other than what I’ve been doing the last few months. I figured no one really wants to read about content management systems and design work with all the frustration and rewards that come with it, so I decided to add a few links to my writing resource directory. As usual, I found something to write about.

While trying to decide what writing related subject to look for, I discovered that the writing exercises section of my directory, or to be more specific - sites with writing prompts, are very popular. I hadn’t paid too much attention to the hits the sites in my directory were getting. Partly because my directory is still very new and hadn’t been indexed by the major search engines. Apparently that has changed and the directory is getting some good traffic. Since the writing prompt category is so popular, I decided to go in search of more sites offering writing prompts.

Well … I should have paid attention to how my mind works because for some unknown reason I found myself setting up a new category for writing organizations, which includes writers conferences. After finding and adding a few writers conference and association sites, I found myself on a page about writers block. Anyone spending time reading the content on this blog will know that I have struggled with writers block for some time now, more time than I care to admit to. Whenever I run across a site about writers block, I always explore the information. This site is more intriguing then most, simply because of how it is laid out and it has an unusual feature.

Get Into It was created by writer, Lisa R. Cohen. The first thing I saw was a purple site with table like boxes. I wasn’t sure what to look at. Since I spend a lot of time surfing when I’m not designing Web sites, my eyes automatically look for a navigation bar, usually found to the left or right of the content, though sometimes it can be found at the top of the page, which is old-school Web page layout. But this site has no obvious navigation. Lisa chose a more creative way to display her content. Each box surrounding the middle box, which has a definition of block, has a link to specific content. The box links includes titles like, is it really writers block?, why is this happening to me?, things NOT to do, things that might help, advice from the prolific, exercises, resources for blocked writers and finally, the amazing Write-O-Matic.

Basically, the amazing Write-O-Matic is a form that you fill out and then email it to yourself. No one ever sees it except you. It asks the question, “How hard is it to get over writer’s block?” then it gives the prompt: Well, it’s hard… Below the prompt are three fields. The first field asks for one word, the second field asks for a sentence and the last field asks for a whole paragraph. Then you fill in your email address and send it to yourself. Ingenious, simply ingenious! I just love what appears to be a one-dimensional concept that could produce a complexity of shades and textures for its users.

By the time I completed my surfing adventure yesterday, I had come full circle and found a writing prompt, though specific to writers block it’s still a prompt and I fulfilled my original intent. I also found a author driven community site, SFF Net, which is for science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, mystery, and young adult fiction authors. I may write about this site at a later date but wanted to provide the link to anyone who may be interested. There is some great writing related material on this site, all provided by members and worth exploring even if you are interested in a different genre than those named above. Lisa R. Cohen’s pages are hosted on this site, as are many other authors.