writer's block is writers lying

This past week, I did a lot of research, but I couldn't bring myself to add pages to my latest paper. It caused major stress. I was reminded of why I am afraid of career writing. The stress got worse. I felt dumb for being stressed. The stress got even...worse. And so, cookie dough on spoon, third coffee on nightstand, I looked up the origins of writer's block.

Fittingly(?), "writer's block" is one of the least informative wikipedia pages I have read. Upon further digging, my general understanding of what is and what causes writer's block was confirmed. Coined by a psychoanalyst in the 40s, it is an issue of feeling uncreative, anxious, or unskilled, for any number of reasons, including no reason at all, that causes writing to stop.

Days later, I agree with applying causation to anxiety, and, at least in my case, the anxiety is related to trying to write something I don't believe or know (or think I know). Never has the writing gone slowly if the thoughts are confident and true. Just this week, I was struggling through a project proposal when I realized I was proposing a project I didn't think was useful. This idea was affirmed on Friday when I was having water with a girlfriend and heard myself struggle to discuss a personal topic. Eventually I blurted out a shocking phrase. I acknowledged its ring of truth only upon hearing it escape my mouth, and then the words poured out.

I'm now noticing how prevalent is this communication block in personal life. Relationships only cause me stress if I'm lying. Only if I'm lying (usually to myself) is it difficult to find the words to say, or does anxiety feel like torment. This week, when I made serious eye contact with a friend and allowed the truth to be exchanged between us, I first understood the issue at hand. Upon figuring out the core of my message, the words (and tears) fell.

I've decided writer's block isn't a thing. Self-deception is a thing. It is difficult to write when judging or deceiving myself, and it's impossible to write when judging myself for judging or deceiving. I had this belief reflected back at me this week when on a run with my friend, Randy. We talked about Sheryl Sandberg's talk on how women get in their own way, and as much as I'd like to add a hefty dose of materialism to Sandberg's "numbers tell the story" approach, the practice of women's negative self-talk is surely contributing to writing slowing to a halt.

Now that the block is sorted, it's BACK TO THE PAPER, reciting affirmations to tell it like it is, sans dough.

why having issues is good for business

These years, I read about things that are "problematic." For examples, "The representation of queerness in Gaga's Born This Way video is so problematic," or, "The way the Because I Am A Girl Movement needs to use hyperfeminine tropes to gain political clout for gender equity is so problematic." We grad students seem to like, as my friend Heather calls it, to do paranoid reading (that is, to read skeptically). We get good at it too. Everything is problematic, even eating chocolate ice cream. If you eavesdropped on our hangouts, you'd think we get off on discovering that things are, say, racist, or poorly conceived in general. Mostly we like pointing out how ironic is everything over beverages. That is what grad students do. Last one to point out the problematic thing is a rotten soybean!

Well, based on the above, it's a terrific thing, since I am a part of my cohort of study, that I'm so darn problematic. As some background for my dissertation, I'm currently looking to theories on social scripts, social roles, and fantasy. I've been tripping out to literature on daydreams since this weekend, and now that I've analyzed my own day fantasies more rigorously, I'm feeling like a huge hypocrite. And I'm feeling like my thesis argument is stronger than ever because of it.

Why I am so problematic:

Since I have formed some critical thoughts on the literature on women’s role conflict, I am surprised by the often-competitive thoughts flowing through me while pursuing this degree project. Like most doctoral students, I have had my share of motivational ups and downs throughout, but the most surprising to me is how, even in the midst of examining the way social scripts function to oppress personal and professional roles based on gender, I continue to follow these. I am explicitly glued (in my own mind) to particular scripts.

Illustrative of my investments in performing according to certain scripts, my life stresses, generally speaking, can be attributed to straying from them. My imagined roles may alter slightly from more traditional norms, but I think they reflect archetypes typical among my cohort. I frequently daydream about simultaneously embodying the ideal neoliberal subject and the ideal mother, down to the minute details of wardrobe and staging. I literally have visions of pureeing organic root vegetables for my gleaming toddler while pausing to receive a phone call from my highly reputable book publisher that my latest revisions have been accepted. The phone call is usually interrupted by a kiss on the cheek from my brilliant, handsome, chiseled, loyal, feminist husband who adores me and joyfully performs more than half of our domestic labour so that I may travel for my career. In this dream, I am also agelessly fit and healthy, and so is my dog, which does not bark.

This “secret” daydream – the one that exists among knowing what there is to know about competing devotions as well as how certain fantasies are imbricated in neo-colonial and imperialist projects and yet still promotes “having it all” – does not cease to shock me. Today I was dreaming it while on a morning run (in this morning's version, I was being greeted by my family at the finish line of a marathon. Following the race, we returned home to consume kitchen sink muffins, baked freshly that morning by moi. Then my partner and I worked on the feminist project we were co-authoring). The denial is palpable. I now understand that this seriously reinforces my major argument.

For now, back to the literature. Share your problematics, people.

In the beginning, was the Word Doc.

Today, as Catholics prepare for rebirth this Easter weekend, I start writing my dissertation. I can hear my mother's voice: "What does that mean, exactly?" I've been in the degree program for two years. It's a fair question.

I opened a word doc, saved it as "d-word_04-05-12," and wrote 6 single-spaced pages straight: what do I have to say, why do I have to say it, why I am the best one to say it. Afterward, I had to remove my contact lenses. I mustn't have blinked enough.

The writing surge was inspired by the first page of "The Girls Who Went Away," by Ann Fessler. I merely opened the book, read the first paragraph, put the book down, and raced to my computer. If-I-don't-get-this-out-now-it-is-lost-forever.....

This is just to note... here goes. One day, when a manuscript is submitted to the printer for binding, I'll look back on this sunny spring afternoon and think, "hmph."