Writer's block is a catch-all generic term for someone who has difficulty transferring his/her dazzling ideas from fountain pen to parchment, rhetorically speaking, each one equally as maddeningly frustrating as the other.
When you're on a roll, whenever you had a torrent of ideas you could even hear the ink aggressively rushing through your fountain pen at the ready to provide the magic string of verbal pearls, a sort of incantation that unleashed a creative force that transformed itself seamlessly into brilliant language as it settled softly with ease on page after page after page creating a magnificent work of art.
The two blockages I encounter most often are the following:
The first is when mind is equally as blank and empty as your first page. It's the frequently portrayed stereotypical one of the frustrated writer at wit's end hunched over his/her computer unable to conjure up a single word or unable to get past the first sentence, "It was a dark and stormy night," when there's not even a hint of creative condensation.
The second is when ideas gush out easily but it's nothing more than bilge, an incoherent stream of words and sentences from which you're unable to conjure up a compelling story in any form, let alone in an entertaining way.
But fear not. One method of firing up that creative artistic engine is to keep on hand - as in a hard copy - several types of articles by writers you enjoy reading. This means those who are not necessarily iconic or well-known writers, rather those with whom you have a certain comfortable and likeable connection in how you think. Not only should you read it, read it aloud, softly perhaps in sotto voce as if you're a storyteller to someone sitting at a table across from you. And the reason I never use my own previously published articles is that it has the same results when a doctor treats himself - not well.
Different styles mean different rhythms from which to choose. Always have them at the ready whether physically in books or magazines or articles or on your electronic device(s) in a dedicated folder. You don't want to get so stressed and depressed knowing what you have to do and not being able to not only write but remembering then searching the names of those authors and their respective articles. These sources represent the antidote to your creative conundrums.
So next time you're stuck in that creative cerebral traffic jam you can select one and read by example and begin moving forward. Even if you're writing a serious piece on international affairs, an article on fashion or theater may do the treat simply for its style and provide a different perspective. Indeed regardless of the topic you're engaged in, you are in the entertainment business where both comedy and tragedy exist as art. As the words and imagination begin to flow, critical concepts will form and transfer themselves more easily from fountain pen to parchment as the components fall in place so you can later mold them to craft your message to suit your audience.
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