Of blank pages, backspaced thoughts and writer’s block

Each night I sit down to write stories, delving into the nocturnal peace and silence. That’s the only time when tranquillity seeps into my being and my mind gains the ability to revisit the tales of people I have met in the last few years, in UAE. On nights when the stories flow seamlessly, I sleep soundly, as my anthology of people, emotions, locales, personalities who thrive amid the music of sand dunes, come alive.

However, one night, after an hour of scribbling, sighing, drinking coffee, my screen was just filled with incoherent gibberish, backspaced thoughts and then a blank document. Was this a symptom of something called a ‘writer’s block’?

According to my grandfather who was a scholar/author of many books ‘writer’s block’ is a myth, his typewriter knew no respite till the day he was bedridden. I spoke to a few author-friends of mine, asking them if they too experienced a dead-end at times. The discussions led to many revelations about the writing habits of famous authors.

My friend Anjali opines, “Firstly, make space for yourself, that writing corner, where you can jot down all that’s brewing within; and create that ‘place’ where there is respect for your writing, an activity that’s not looked upon as trivial and worthless. That’s what Virginia Woolf would advise too.”

Another writer-friend says, “I wake up early, in the wee hours of the day, when the mind is fresh, just like Toni Morrison.” The author would wake up before sunrise, make a cup of coffee and in her own words- “while it is still dark — it must be dark — and then I drink the coffee and watch the light come … And I realised that for me this ritual comprises my preparation to enter a space that I can only call non-secular.”

“Why don’t you indulge in props like a Jane Austen tea-set or an old typewriter or lovely pencils like those of Hemingway? I use objects that induce my writing and the books of Dickens, Virginia Woolf and P.G. Wodehouse are always near me for inspiration.” This was another input from a friend.

A technique practised by Hemingway was that he would stop writing for the day just at a point where he knew what would follow thereon, when his creative juices were still flowing-he’d preserve and marinate the ideas until the next day when he would sit down to write again. That way, the chain of thoughts and the rhythm remain intact.

“How about renting a hotel room away from your house and all the din and bustle, for a week or so, like Maya Angelou?” Asked another writer. Maya Angelou would book a tiny, mean room with just a bed, and sometimes a face basin.

She’d keep a dictionary, a Bible, a deck of cards and a bottle of sherry in the room and that would be enough for her to be all sorted and a-writing. Well, that’s probably not an option for me as I wouldn’t be able to focus on work, I’d worry about the home-front transforming into a whirlwind-stricken zone.

What impressed me was the “candy store hours” routine diligently followed by Isaac Azimov, the prolific science fiction author. The routine was named after the candy store that his father began. The shop would open at 6am and close at 1am every day, year-round and Asimov worked the same hours.

However, I finally found inspiration in Franz Kafka and Anthony Trollope. Kafka didn’t start writing until 11pm when he’d finish a long day, working for an insurance company. Trollope would write 250 words every fifteen minutes between 5:30am and 8:30am, in the morning before he went off for the day to work for the postal service.

A regimented routine, will power, persistence and the urge to tell stories … stories that will live on, much after I am gone, will keep the ink flowing and … did someone say, “writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all”?

Well, thank you for saying that, Charles Bukowski, you just motivated me!

Navanita Varadpande is a writer based in Gurgaon, India. Twitter: @VpNavanita