Writer's dilemma #2: When you don't have the words

An examination of an uneasy silence

Moments before posting. How meta of me ;)

I have struggled to write in the last three months. Struggle implies real effort, attempt, but it is more accurate to say that I have felt some form of paralysis that has stopped me from writing anything substantial; from sitting down and processing my thoughts; from turning them into stories, into truth.

At the start of the year, I reflected on how I would hold on to the quiet for the sake of my writing, because “in the quiet, I can hear myself, make sense of all I have experienced, transcribe it into words.” (linked here). I made a valiant effort to stave off the noise, to hold off distractions. The aspects of my life off the page have fiercely competed for my attention; have made loud and boisterous movements to get and keep it; have refused my desire to drown them out and focus simply on this — black ink on white page. And so, I am a week late on here. I had to ask myself what I was ready to write about at this moment, and the answer was a reflection on the struggle itself— on this other, less desirable, type of silence; not of the world, but of my words.

I was relieved to discover that other writers experience this. Tillie Olsen, in her 1965 essay “Silences,” says that “literary history and the present are dark with silences: the years-long silences of acknowledged greats; the ceasing to publish after one work appears; the hidden silences; the never coming to book form at all.” She confesses that she too, has “let writing die over and over again” in her. Thankfully, she makes a distinction between natural and unnatural silences. Natural silences, according to her, are “that necessary time for renewal, lying fallow, gestation, in the natural cycle of creation.” Elisa Gabbert, in her essay, “Why write?”, analyses Olsen’s words and agrees that “”breaks or blocks, times when the author has nothing to say or can only repeat themselves, are the opposite of “the unnatural thwarting of what struggles to come into being, but cannot””.  In other words, natural silences, where writers experience such breaks and blocks, are part of the process of writing; what Keats calls “agonie ennuyeuse”.

These natural silences occur for various reasons. Daniel José Older, in his essay, “Writing begins with forgiveness”, explains why there are days that he didn’t “write a single word”: “Sometimes, it’s because I was busy being alive. Other times, it’s because the story I was working on simply wasn’t ready to be written yet. I’ve spent many anxious, fidgety hours in front of the blank screen, doing nothing but being mad at myself.” Melville shared similar frustrations: “I am so pulled hither and thither by circumstances. The calm, the coolness, the silent grass-growing mood in which a man ought always to compose, that can seldom be mine.” This is what I am experiencing at the moment—a lack of calm, some of which is self-inflicted. In the last six weeks, I have travelled to five countries, including four new ones (I will share about this soon). This is great for inspiration, but horrible for consistency. More damagingly, I have dealt with interpersonal conflict; uncertainty about my future; and a situation that affected my writing confidence. (Ironically, this situation came after I found out that another one of my stories would be published (I will share about this soon also!)) All in all, these incidents have either prevented me from being able to maintain a healthy writing routine; or have made me afraid to confront my thoughts around certain things. The general feeling that it has produced — this not-writing, whether natural or not, has been unease, listlessness and anxiety.

In this, I am not alone either. I saw this quote by Raymond Carver, and felt like I could have written it: “When I’m not writing, it’s as if I’ve never written a word or had any desire to write. I fall into bad habits. I stay up too late and sleep too long. But it’s okay. I’ve learned to be patient and to bide my time.” And Keats, in explaining the “agonie ennuyeuse” (emphasis on agony!) states this: “I have been writing a little now and then lately: but nothing to speak of—being discontented and as it were, moulting. Yet I do not think I shall ever come to the rope or the pistol, for after a day or two’s melancholy, although I smoke more and more my own insufficiency—I see by little and little more of what is to be done, and how it is to be done, should I ever be able to do it. On my soul, there should be some reward for that continual agonie ennuyeuse.” Both Carver and Keats are ultimately hopeful, ending their thoughts on a positive note. They speak of patience, they speak of a process.

I suppose that the difference between a natural and unnatural silence is what you do next; is when/ how you return to the page; is what little steps you take. This warning from Tillie Olsen looms in my mind: “Where the claims of creation cannot be primary, the results are atrophy; unfinished work; minor effort and accomplishment; silences.” So how do we avoid enduring silences? For Daniel José Older, the key is forgiveness: “I forgive myself for not sitting down to write sooner, for taking yesterday off, for living my life. That shame? I release it. My body unclenches; a new lightness takes over once that burden has floated off. There is room, now, for story, idea, life.” This makes sense to me, because a lot of the writing process happens in the mind first. After this, it becomes about trying, slowly, to get back into the habit, to unearth or retrieve the words. And even when you’re able to sit down and the words don’t flow, that’s okay too. For Elisa Gabbert, “staring at my laptop screen makes me better at thinking. Even thinking about writing makes me better at thinking.” Daniel José Older agrees that “brainstorming is part of writing too”, and this doesn’t have to happen at the desk.

All of this ultimately boils down to patience (patience with ourselves as well as with the words) and this is true for Kafka as well, who says this: “When I begin to write after such a long interval, I draw the words as if out of the empty air. If I capture one, then I have just this one alone, and all the toil must begin anew.” The point here is that, writing is toil, and as Balzac says, “constant toil is the law of art, as it is of life.”

So here I am, toiling on the page, outsmarting the block by writing about it; making my slow way back into a routine; reopening the tap and being patient with what flows out; hoping to overcome, word by painstaking word; this natural, uncomfortable silence.

Can you relate? Let me know in the comments!

Prompt:

What form of silence have you struggled with, if any? Write about it and share it with me (by sending it on instagram, or replying by email if you’re a subscriber) in the next week, and it will go up on the Instagram page.