A Writer's Block

Don't make me laugh, this isn't a war if you come in my path/
You're only hot when I ain' running like two taps in a bath/

SCRIBBLE

Don't make me laugh, this isn't a war if you come in my path/
You hesistate to start like indentations in paragraphs/

SCRIBBLE

Don't make me laugh, this isn't a war if you come in my path/
I'm writing hard because I'm working on your tomb's epitaph/

If there's one thing I can say is going right for me right now, it's my writing. I've gotten to a point where I no longer feel pressured when I write, especially if it's poetry or lyrics. It took me a long time to overcome that "fear of the void" though.

A young friend of mine asked me to rip a track with him. I said cool. I started on a verse just last night. It was dope... but I didn't even like it. And with no hesitation, I cast it aside. Because I was that sure that another one would come to me.

Less than a minute later, it did.

I know it sounds like I'm being cocky, but it's not that. It's simply that I've finally "settled in". Writing has gone from a roulette to a routine for me. Of course I haven't "mastered" it, but I have gotten to a point where I can teach myself anything that I haven't yet learned. And that in itself is a type of mastery.

As a writer, the most difficult thing to overcome is the occasional writer's block. But even there, I found out what writer's block really is. There was a writer named George Herbert Mead who was brilliant in his field (social psychology). The problem is, he didn't leave much material. The reason for that is because he looked so hard for "genius" that he wouldn't write until he found it.

That used to be a problem for me; I too am a perfectionist at my craft. But what I did was I put myself in situations where I was forced to crank out high-caliber writing in minimal time. Eventually, I realized this: sometimes genius is instantly evident; sometimes genius comes with development. But if you never put pen to paper, then genius is irrelevant.

Writing actually taught me a lot about faith. The sensation of Peter stepping out on water is the same sensation I feel when trying to write under pressure. Sometimes I have an idea in mind that's already cut for me; sometimes I have nothing and I want make something. In the second instance, that's when it takes a leap of faith. And I have yet to set out in that manner and have it return void.

Another part of the faith thing is having the courage to put my best ideas out. It's easy as a writer to become hesitant about putting your best foot forward: there's always biters, plagiarizers, etc. out there looking for their "own original ideas" or looking for something to piggyback off of. But for a real writer, the greatest fear isn't them; it's the fear of running out of material. And, with good ideas being such a rarity, it's easy to believe that they're limited in supply.

But they're not. And I can prove it.

I performed an experiment once. I've been writing for years, and I've written things that I can't even recall. On occasion I'll write something I really like and, before it has a chance to sink in, I'll hide it away somewhere. And when I do it, I'm not planning on digging it up anytime soon. This is my reasoning:

When in the writing process I find myself running out of ideas, I just smile and continue to write. Because I know running out of ideas is not possible. If it WERE possible, then the ideas from those hidden writings would come back to me... and they never have. It's a weird experiment, I know; but it proves that good ideas continue to exist outside of our awareness of them. Therefore, we should just keep digging until we find them.

I still abide by the same two principles in my writing: 1) never write down anything without a purpose; 2) say as much as you can in the fewest words possible. I'm at a point now where I'm very critical of every type of writer, from the simple to the most astute; they all do things that irk me, lol. Truthfully, I even irk myself most times, because I know exactly where to improve everything that I write; I just can't always invest the time and energy into doing that each time. Yes, there's an element of time management in almost everything aspect of life.

I think the most critical aspect of my writing is something that isn't very...tangible. As a youngster, before I got the hang of all the grammatical parts of writing, I learned something else. I learned how to write meaningfully. And to be honest, I'm not sure HOW I learned that. At some point, I learned how to write to hearts moreso than to heads. I learned how to be myself within the confines (and sometimes WITHOUT the confines) of grammatical rule. And even at that, I learned when those rules were important and when they weren't. I've taught many writers how to become better at their craft, but that is one thing I've never managed to be able to teach. It's like trying to teach a robot to have a soul; it's gotta come from inside that robot.

This was actually supposed to be a lyrical verse at the onset; so much for that. I trusted my writer's instinct to let this become what it was meant to become. I'd say it was a good call.