Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
I am writing this column in a state of writer’s block.
Writer’s block occurs when a writer can’t think of anything to write about.
If you’re not a writer, you don’t get writer’s block.
If non-writers can’t come up with something to write about, they don’t worry about it. In fact, they are probably relieved. It means one less thing they feel compelled to do.
A writer, however, worries about not having anything to write about, because writers are supposed to write.
Writer’s block, then, carries burdens of guilt and despair for a writer.
Guilt because people depend on seeing a writer’s written products.
Despair because writers often earn all or part of their income by producing written stuff.
My life has been exceptionally uneventful and isolated lately. No reason. Sometimes it just happens that way, especially with introverts like me.
I haven’t been contemplating the meaning of life or anything remotely as profound.
I have just been busy with things that would interest only me, like long rides over familiar ground on my bicycle and reading stuff on subjects that obviously have been written about already. I’ve been doing a little research, but not on anything of general interest.
The only subjects that came to mind this week are things that I have already expounded on or blathered about with nothing new to add, or that I have promised to leave alone for a while, like the Nara Visa borehole.
There is a whole industry of advice on how to conquer writer’s block. Go for a drive. Stand on your head. List 20 new uses for a doorknob.
Often this advice merely hides the fact that the writer with the block has nothing to say for the time being.
Sometimes it’s better left that way.
Next week I have more on my calendar that includes matters more interesting to more people.
In the meantime, I’m using up the single opportunity to talk about my writer’s block that a writer is allowed.
I can’t do that again or I’ll violate my poetic license.
Steve Hansen writes about our life and times from his perspective of a retired Tucumcari journalist. Contact him at: [email protected]