Writer's Block

When I wrote my first three books in one year, I was thinking, wow this writing stuff is easy. Ideas swam around in my brain and just riding down the street would spur some memories of years past and a writing idea would emerge.

Nothing has changed in that sense, but getting those ideas and memories in the form of a book seem to be harder than I originally thought. I don’t know if that’s what is called “writer’s block”, but whatever it is, I have it. It has been easy to write a 400-600-word column because those are mostly opinions and I am full of those. The columns also include memories from the past that meant something special to me so that is easy to write about also. I have been asked how I can remember so much detail from 50 years ago, I usually joke and say, “my memory is so good that I can remember things that haven’t happened yet.”

That brings me to put my latest book project down on the physical pages and out of the pages of my mind. As you may have read before, the project is a book that I call ‘Rubi’s Diary’. The book is about my interaction with an Orangutan at the Rio Grande Zoo and the friendship and trust that she has allowed me to enjoy over the last three years.

I managed to get a foreword and the first two chapters written, but for some reason, I haven’t been able to get past whatever is holding me back. I still visit Rubi and feel guilty when I don’t get there at least once a week, and Rubi lets me know when I don’t get there enough. She will ignore or play her opposite game for the first half- hour or so. The opposite game she plays is like a 4-year old’s game, and I have some experience with that; after all, I was in politics. If I ask her to do something for me she will purposely do the opposite or something completely different, just to let me know that she is the boss and I stayed away too long. Hmmm… I think I just wrote the theme for a chapter in her book.

I chronicled most of my interaction on Facebook over the years and it is just a matter of putting it down in book form and getting it published. So why can’t I do it?

When I first started writing seriously, I wrote as a coping mechanism to deal with a tragedy in my life that I never talked about. Writing about the tragedy was easy because of decades of pent-up emotions and guilt. Now that I’m retired I have all the time in the world, and maybe that’s the problem. I can always do it tomorrow.

Because I am procrastinating, I am going to break with tradition this year and make a New Year resolution or two.

Like everyone else it seems, I am determined to get back to my “fighting weight” and reduce my waistline. ‘Rubi’s Diary’ will be a priority and my resolution is to finish the book, get it published, and continue my adventure with Rubi whenever I can.

I am here to tell you that writer’s block is a real thing and it can take the form of lack of ideas or just plain,” I can do it tomorrow because I have all the time in the world.” Maybe I have too many ideas in my head and they are cluttering things up. Whatever you call it, it’s real and the New Year will help me overcome it.

Then again, I can always do it tomorrow.