I posted an article dealing with some aspect of writer's block, that peculiar inability to put paws to the keyboard and pen to paper.
One reader, a fellow writer, wrote me a personal note of protest
"Writer's block doesn't exist!" he asserts.
What he didn't say, which should be appended to his statement is: "for me."
Writer's block doesn't exist for him.
And that could very well be possible. He may be one of I would think many folks that has never hesitated to express his opinions, craft a memo, inscribe an academic tome, or to play with the language, at will, simply for the joy of it.
What I do know is there are others that are blocked, and they'd give nearly anything to be like him, digits dancing across the alphabet in feckless fecundity.
Dick Cavett, former talk show host, writes a blog for the New York Times. In it he shares his memories, and one of the most profound sources of recollection comes from his suffering from clinical depression.
He noted that a magical cure could have been within reach, just across the room, but in his depressive state he couldn't summon the gumption to get up from his chair, take the five steps or so, to grab it.
The negative inertia was so shackling, the "Why bother?" nihilism so profound, that outsiders, people who didn't suffer from depression, would never "get" what he got, unless they got it, themselves.
Well meaning, otherwise intelligent, informed folks mindlessly chirp, "Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps!" They behold glorious light at the end of their tunnels, where depressives see only oncoming trains, one after the next.
Writer's block, like depression, is a personal Hell.
There are lots of ways to enter, but frightfully few to exit.
