Writer's block. The void

Thinking. That's the thing. Thinking as creating.

I wasn't sure what to write here, so as an act of faith in myself, I started writing, hoping something would come.

Presently, there's a yawning gap in my head where I'd have liked there to be a phrase; a place where I'd settle for at least a glimmer of an idea. A tickle instead of a vacuum. A hint to replace the smooth black monolith of nowt.

You see, when I think, then run-of-the-mill activity's usually parked so I can mesh my mental gears to pursue the next great Wow! It's a telling process. Very telling. And consciously and deliberately moving one's attention to the well spring pump, leaning in, and with great effort pumping the handle; well, it's no guarantee of success, is it?

So, I'd like to write about the void I come up against. And dear reader - be honest, be truly honest with me - it's the same one you face too, isn't it?

I'd like to unpack two things about it.

Number one's an observation.

In my opinion, it's totally normal. Using an analogy. Right off the bat in the morning, in the cold, when I turn my ignition key in the car, I sometimes get a hiccough instead of an instant Brrrrum! A few more twists, coaxings, prayers, curses and promises, and usually we're all set for our journey. That delay, the failure to catch - it's normal. After the fifteenth time, I'll call recovery, but not on the third. I'd also like to point out that the car doesn't give a tinker's curse about where we're going. It's firing or not is quite independent of my needs. Not so, my assembly.

[Just so you know; I need to tell you this: I don't like the word brain. I can't deny that it's the correct word - it's just, well - it sounds awful. I much prefer The Assembly. So that's what I'll use. A brain is a controlling organ. A blob of grey matter. A big thumping lump of fat and jelly. However, an assembly has more going for it. It's a collection of parts working together to some useful end. Assembly also hints at organisation. I know it's an evolved organ - not designed - but it works in some way, as though it were. There's no more logical reason than this: I like this alternative word, and since no one's taken me to task thus far, I'll use it for a while while until I tire of it, or I feel foolish and pretentious enough to stop using it. So there!]

My assembly has all sorts of stuff it's doing. It doesn't really like having its powers commandeered. In its world view, daydreaming about biscuits and coffee is every bit as worthy as plumbing for a sentence that's going to set the internet on fire. So when I hold up my hand and tell it I want it to come up with some highfalutin prose for a blog, it draws down the curtain. This isn't the curtain of unconsciousness preceded by a brief kaleidoscope of jumbled thoughts and insanity, no. It's the void. The voidy void.

In defence of my brain - oops, assembly- at least it doesn't institute a blank of blind terror, which is one of its other options. I normally get this response when asked a perfectly reasonable question at interview. Something along the lines of, "Where do you see yourself in five years' time?" The void then usually swirls into a time-tunnel-like vortex with the inquisitor at one end and me at the other. I'm the one rotating, nauseous. The person making notes is very small. Very, very small. I don't exist at all - or wish that I didn't.

The second point I'd like to make is that the big void is the assembly's equivalent of the little spinning icon - the wait sign on a computer screen. Something's happening. Please be patient. If you're like me, patience doesn't come as standard. However, impatience does. So let's face the facts. We've obviously evolved with this lag as a natural feature, yet we've also developed an intolerance of it. Well, I have. Hence, it's all too easy to get distracted. What was that about coffee and biscuits?

The machinery of the mind is at work and it is hard work. There's lots of heavy lifting going on behind the blank screen. Uurgh! Ea-argh! Phew! A brief and temporary channel's being forged between your consciousness and your other bits, including the subconscious. I think the subconscious is quite wily; it draws a veil across the machinery. We'd go a bit bonkers if we could see and feel all the belts and pendulums and rotating bits of our thoughts. For sure we would.

Let me qualify what I'm unpacking here and issue a disclaimer. This is the void in writing I'm talking about. There are other bits of thinking I know about that have a different flavour, most notably mathematics, where I can feel all the chunky bits of arithmetic clogging the channels of my thought. I often have to go back and sweep up the debris of my previous shattered attempts.

With the writing, one must have faith that something will come.

It will come.

It will. Surely?

Faith - that's where it's really at, isn't it?

Please let a return thought manifest itself. No matter how small and insignificant. To be able to tear a roll of wallpaper off the wall, all one needs is the tiniest little corner to get hold of.

Then the thought comes. Like a jewel in a pile of crud. One relaxes and gives oneself a congratulatory pat on the back. It did come! It was squeezed out. That was a job well done! Then you relax so much, the thought submerges back whence it came. You scramble to resurrect it. Then you feel inclined to score it. Does it meet with the required format? Does it have depth? Does the thought have legs? Will it carry you to other thoughts? It it part of a train of thought or is it a glorious dead end? Is it original? Will it bear scrutiny from yourself and others? On and on and on...

There are a couple of other possibilities:

Maybe what came from all that thinking was honestly too grand, too earth-shattering. Your subconscious effectively saved you and the rest of humanity from a thought so terrifyingly original, it was deemed toxic to express, even to you.

Or there really was nothing there after all. Even after all the gurning and thunking, the good ole pump splurged out a big fat zero. You have a head full of white noise without either the whiteness or indeed the noise. Just what lies between these two dots. .