The Writer's Block

On the plane from France to London.

We’re going through a turbulence area. The girl sitting next to me is watching Grey’s Anatomy and doesn’t seem particularly affected by the plane’s sudden movement.

The man sitting on my left grabs the armrest maybe a bit too hard, he swallows and tries to focus on his book, The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy. “Huh, haven’t heard of that one” I think as I continue writing on my notepad.

The turbulences make my handwriting look rather terrible. I hear myself clicking my tongue, I can’t understand a word of what I just wrote.

Hi, everyone. (Echo responds)

I am here to say that I am not dead. (Echo cheers)

There are thousands of excuses I could list as a way of justifying why I haven’t written anything here in months. I could tire myself explaining how I have been busy, stressed, uninspired… only to realise that, in the end, everything comes down to lack of organisation and a great share of procrastination. Believe me, one thing I’ve learnt since my last post is that “I’ll just write it tomorrow” is pretty much the same as “I’ll write it never”.

Also, fun fact regarding procrastination? Instagram and Tumblr are not your friends.

It’s not like I get brownie points for being back here, since it was me who began with this over ambitious plan to write every day in the first place, but do allow me to pat myself on the back, because there’s been more than one time over the past months that I actually believed I just wasn’t able to write anymore. I guess it happens. I guess it’s normal. Whatever I guessed, it didn’t help at all. I’ve gone through similar stuff in the past, when I could not write a thing unless there was a deadline, unless I had to write. But it always went away after a week or two, and then I would go back to being my constantly scribbling self.

This year, however, I actually dreaded the moment I had to sit down and write. “I’m going to sit in front of my computer for 10 hours and write 300 words only to delete 250,” I used to think, “I’ll reread the 50 which lives I’ve spared and then I’ll delete them as well.”

The fact that writing had become draining instead of something to look forward to was problematic, and a bit of a mystery even for myself. Writing is what I do, a writer is who I am, so why the fucking FUCK CAN I NOT WRITE?

It wasn’t until I was on a plane, flying back to London after spending a week in the South of France with my sister, that it hit me: the only reason I couldn’t write is because I wasn’t writing. It was simple and even a bit stupid, but the truth is that all it took was a notepad, a green pen (the only one with some ink left) and some turbulences to bring my motivation back.

Sometimes that’s all we need. We need the plane moving suddenly, waking us up and making us fear for our lives. “Oh my God, are we falling? Are going to die?” The turbulences have turned more violent, and the man on my left grabs his armrest even harder. He has his eyes closed. I wonder what or who is he thinking about. Because there are moments we need to be reminded we can cry, scream, bleed. We need to be reminded that we’re alive, alive, alive.

And the best thing about being alive? That it isn’t fucking easy.