Writer's Gridlock

I have a tonne of ideas. I could chatter on about nostalgia and changes. I could describe how incredibly dull I thought Up in the Air was. Apart from a few shots of ninja suitcase zipping there is very little story line to speak of. I could even babble on about the feeling I experienced today, of emerging from the tunnel of January, the fog of stress and rain that seems to have lifted for a while. Yes there are so many tiny buds of ideas zipping around my brain this way and that, so many that I cannot pick one to explode and as soon as I start picking at one of them, they all start to burst out onto the page in an unintelligible mess of jibber-jabber that I can barely understand.

I’m told writer’s block is very common, and considering I want to be a journalist I suppose I should get used to it and find a way out of the maze? So here goes, my attempts at shifting writer’s block:

I am a devout worshipper of the almighty mind map. Large or small, neat or scribbled, colour co-ordinated or numbered; however it turns out it will be eternally useful. Unfortunately my trusty mind maps have today degenerated into a series of doodle-embellished arrows.

So I move on to procrastination, a little tidying up here, some “To-Do list” writing there. Several cups of tea later and I am going nowhere fast…time for a change of strategy…

…Definitely not a fan of looking at other blogs/articles for inspiration. No. This seems to stunt my original thoughts like the growth of a 6-year-old coffee-drinker.

If all else fails, sleep on it. Not the desirable solution when there is a deadline, lucky for me on this blog there are no deadlines. I suppose it’s worth a try, but it seems counter-productive to go to bed instead of at least sitting near a pen and paper/keyboard in the hope of a lightning-strike of inspiration.

If anything, this particularly uninspiring blog post will show you that currently I am metaphorically spent. For now I have no more similes, concepts or visualisations up my sleeve, to brighten up a social commentary or idle musing of mine. I am at least somewhat reassured that my day-dreams will soon give me new ideas…then I’ll be filling, stuffing and cramming the metaphors into my next post before you know what to do with them.