writer's haze

Wednesday October 25, 2006


When I woke up this morning, I knew it was a morning to leave the house; I felt the writer’s block coming on. I have always imagined writer’s block as a large, stone wall with writers wringing their hands at the base of it, not knowing what is on the other side. This wall is a materialization of a void where no words or ideas exist. My writer’s block, were it a wall, would be built with bricks of frustration, inferiority, and largely of boredom. It would have a chink in it though, through which I could peer into a life beyond the dissertation. But, this is not my experience. For me, writer’s block is a gauzy haze which, since it seems to exist on its own, desires contact with the material world – hence, I often clean instead of working. I feel like I am doing something, and I am rewarded by a clean apartment at the end of it.

I think part of what’s missing at this stage is a ritual. Like most people, I require the comfort of a daily ritual. I don’t have a place that I like working for starters. At home, I feel too isolated. At school, I am too distracted. But perhaps these excuses are only a ruse for the real issue: the overwhelm of producing an original manuscript on something I feel I only know very little about. I think of all the French primary sources that are surely out there and which I have never examined. I think of all the translations I need to do, and the French I need to study. These feelings, in the end, bore me, and I just want to lay in my bed and watch TV instead.

So, today, I went to the coffee shop where I spent most of my Special Fields Exam crafting musical analyses. I made it through most of my proposal, tightening up ideas and syntax. I then tried to read, but the dangerous foreboding set in. I thought a glance at People magazine might free me from this miasma. I felt much better for it, but the fog soon clouded my head again. I decided to return to my apartment where it only got worse. I opted for a nap, and here I am - dressed in jeans and a UCLA hooded jacket – putting these fears on the page next to a steaming cup of green tea.