I have been sitting watching TV news, all the while trying to think of something to write.
My screen is as blank as my mind. It is as though the normal merry-go-round in my head has come to a halt and been shut down for the night.
Every writer in any genre – novels, songs, short stories – seems to go through the same thing now and then and underlying it is a question that is never far away. Have I written everything I will ever write? Has the well run dry?
Self-doubt is part and parcel of the craft. To give an example, I look at the hundred and fifteen words I have just now written and think, “What crap.”
Some writers are very disciplined and therefore able to produce on command. I used to be this way in the newspaper business. I would interview someone, go back to the newsroom, write up the story. But I had my notes; the stories wrote themselves.
With creative writing, the game changes. The writer is dependent on inspiration. And sometimes that is in short supply.
©2016 Jim Hagarty
