How to overcome the blank page

“Writing is a privilege and a luxury. Anybody who whines about writer’s block should be forced to clean squid all day”

Anthony Bourdain

When I was in my most prolific era of writing (let’s say around 20 years old) I read something and I think it was Anthony Bourdain who said it and it was that writers block is not a real thing and you basically need to just get over it and put pen to paper or in this case I guess fingers to keyboard. I remember being so angry about that, what did this guy even know about writing, how could a chef ever understand what myself, a writer, was going through. Now that I’m 23, verging on 24 I understand that he was right, and that a lot of things in life you just have to get over and get on with. What did I know anyway, I was just an angry child who hadn’t experienced anything at that point, not that I have experienced much more since.

I am painfully self-aware, that I have wasted so many years of my life being miserable and just letting myself rot away in my room, rather than experiencing life and all it has to give and the real question I have to ask is, how do you just wake up one day and get on with it? There have been many Mondays that have passed me by, promised to be the start of a new routine, alarms set, room cleaned all to fall back into the same cycle of sleeping in far too late and then feeling guilty for my own uselessness, wallowing in self-pity and lack of motivation. And to be totally candid it has taken me far too long to actually sit down and put these confessions on paper, far too long have they been rattling around my head, keeping me up at night. So I guess that in a way this is me facing my fear of what I write not being good enough and just getting on with it.

I am my own biggest obstacle

Writing is a funny thing because how do you just make yourself do it? Surely it’s something that a lot of people cannot easily bring themselves to do, so how did I find myself carrying around a notebook and writing down every single thought that crossed my mind, reviewing every song or book or show that conjured up a thought and how do you go from that to be completely terrified of ever writing anything again, from fear that it won’t be good or that people won’t read it. I know that I am the only thing in my way and yet how do you overcome yourself? Thinking back on the reasons as to why I was writing so much, perhaps it was because I was in University, there you have assignments and deadlines to make and if you’re in the habit of writing for that then it overflows into your personal life and you find it to be just a part of the routine, but when the routine ends how do you carry it on? For me I tried to go freelance, and I was so convinced that I was going to break in straight away and everything was going to be perfect and I was going to be making money straight away. How stupid! In reality I burnt myself out, made 80 quid and lost all motivation. But I don’t want to put people off by saying that, go for it if you can, just be smarter than me and manage your workload better because you will get used and abused and then oftentimes ghosted. That is just the state of the industry, unfortunately.

I think that there was also a part of me that was not writing because I truly enjoyed what I was doing but because I felt that I had something to prove. I can say this now because so much time has passed (well I think enough time has passed) but I truly believed that in university I was god’s gift to earth and I worked harder and I did more and I cared the most and based on that alone I would become the most successful in my cohort. Looking back I now can recognise that this superiority complex of mine would be my downfall because outside of academia I had nothing and although I may not be wholly deserving of it I will give myself some small mercy in that when everything is based on results it’s easy to understand how someone could fall into that egomaniac mindset. All I can do is hope that I am much more down to earth now (fingers crossed).

Mental Overwhelm

I love writing about music, I love writing in general, whether I have something important to say or not. I hope that I can write about things that will resonate with people, even if it’s only one person ever that will be enough for me. Falling out of love with writing took a massive toll to be honest, I got to a point where I really didn’t know what to do with myself and truthfully I’m still not completely sure what I am doing however I am moving forward with the mindset of, do it first and make it good later. Which just to let you know goes very much against everything else I have ever done as I would like to consider myself a perfectionist although now I much more enjoy a life that is messy around the edges and a little bit off centre, wabi-sabi.

When I begin a new project I tend to come up with some sort of grandiose idea that is far too top heavy. I would bet that many others feel this way too, when starting something new you feel as though everything has to be in place and perfect from the beginning. A blog, a TikTok, a twitter an instagram, collaborations the list goes on and I’m definitely not the first to say this but when you’re a one person operation it feels like so much and is so overwhelming and then the idea just gets shelved and never sees the light of day ( Haha definitely not like how my website sat in the dark for 3 months haha definitely not.) The tendency to choose to write about the most niche or the most interesting or most unknown and to write with the most flamboyancy possible has totally led me astray from what I wanted to get across in the first place. My writing was more interesting when it was common and colloquial and I hate to say it but I lost my voice somewhere along the way, the exact thing that makes my writing, mine.

Thine cup runneth over

By this point you’re probably thinking, my god this girl is miserable, which is weird because I really am not. I find writing extremely cathartic and freeing and I recommend everyone just grab a bit of paper and write whatever comes into your head, a lot of writing is just that and then maybe a little speck of something that stands out and resonates or lights the spark within you. My break has not been entirely depressing, there are many a thing I may not have done if I stuck in with being a serious writer two years ago. I have a job now, which I enjoy sometimes (I actually hate it 99% of the time,) but the people I have met through that have allowed me a social circle and friends. I’ve been out clubbing, to varying degrees of success. I’ve sat and enjoyed many brunches in a snobby cafe or pub in the Northern Quarter. I’ve met someone, started baking again, started leaving the house more, listening to new music. Joined in on subcultures I would never have thought myself to be interested in two years ago. I’ve travelled on my own twice and I’m not even in my mid-twenties (I’m really hanging on to my early-twenties.)I guess after all this incessant rambling what I’m trying to say or get across is that there is so much out there to experience and to do.

I’ll make this promise to you and by default you promise the same to me- that way we can hold each other accountable, don’t let your misery consume you, get out of your room, buy the overpriced cup of coffee, talk to the random at the bus stop, go to the gig you wouldn’t normally, just whatever it is you do, do it with an open mind, let life show you all it has to offer you and I bet it’s far beyond what you could ever imagine.