SACRAMENTO, California - I’ve been through four years of college and all I got was this writer’s block.
This semester started out as any other “new semester ritual” that I’ve encountered in my years as a professional college student; the same excitement and apprehension about new classes, hearing the same grievances about student parking, still dreading the upcoming semester group projects, and always having to participate in the same awkward “introduce yourself and display your most intimate feelings” games the teachers seem to like to play.
Thankfully no one made me wear a name tag this year. I hate that.
The one exclusion to this mundane “new semester ritual” was an elective journalism class, which intrigued me with a semester long writing project. A project that I was actually excited about and couldn’t wait to get started on: writing a blog.
I have always wanted to write a blog yet; have always felt that I had nothing to write about, no direction and nothing exciting enough happening in my life to share in black and white for all to read.
Until now, this was my moment to share my journalism instinct, portray my savvy play on words, and begin a blog with followers and fans to continue writing to long after the class was completed.
To say I have delusions of grandeur regarding my writing career is an understatement.
So on Thursday, after we were given our first blog assignment, to write about our first week of class; I raced home, finished setting up my blog, laughed to myself about all the intelligent and witty topics I could write about, and stared at my fresh blank slate.
Three hours and many deleted lines and headlines later, I was still staring at my not-so-fresh blank slate.
So I put my blog project away for the day. So what if I wasn’t the first student to submit their blog and set the bar for other students to follow? Now I guess at least I got the chance to see what the other students were writing about and to make sure that my topic was going to be original.
So I waited, watched a little television hoping for inspiration, read the first blog, waited for some more inspiration, continued waiting, forgot to do my homework for my Friday class and waited some more.
Until finally it was Monday, less than 24 hours before my deadline, still no sign of inspiration and all I had was my blank slate.
I was crushed. I though maybe I’m not cut out for journalism writing, maybe I’m not as witty and quick as I thought. Then I realized it’s just a mild case of writer’s block.
Writer’s block, that’s my muse for this blog.
Writer’s block, according to Wikipedia, “is a condition, associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work.”
With the deadline now looming only a meager few hours away and the last half of my week spent waiting for inspiration out of my proverbial writer’s block corner, I write about writer’s block hopeful to overcome this condition before the next blog.
Writing about writer's block is a pretty common topic, even among professional columnists.
ReplyDeleteThe pros rarely have it though - they get fired if they do.
Some of what the writer talks about is a function of being a student. Students, even in college, have been conditioned to try to tell the professor/teacher what they think the professor/teacher wants to hear.
Not so when writing a column that has an audience of, quite literally, the world.
This columnist shows great promise in this first endeavor, largely though the good writing evidenced, the willingness to reveal the problem and the likelihood that she will be attacking her next assignment with less trepidation.
Good first effort - even if it was a little painful.