Lessons from the Wall

by guest writer Michael Carroll
Check out Michael’s website at: http://stock-space-images.com

Humorist Jean Shepherd famously said, “Writing is easy. You just stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” I find that encouraging. It means that on those dark days when the words just won’t flow, we writers are not alone.  It seems that “writer’s block” is fairly universal. But do we power through? Do we give it a rest? And what—more importantly—might our stalled story be telling us?

Writing is a discipline. Author Ray Bradbury once told me that he wrote 2000 words each day, no matter what. He did it first thing in the morning, when the cat was the only other soul awake in his home. He did it whether he felt well or ill, whether he was going to a wedding later that day, or a funeral. Sometimes what came out of his Smith Corona was good, and sometimes it wasn’t, but there was always something embedded within those words that he could use. Apparently, Bradbury was a “power through” kind of guy. Not everyone is, but his approach certainly speaks to the fact that our craft involves self-discipline.

And so we come to the WALL. What does it mean when our plot is fizzling and our words refuse to sing? We’ve all hit a wall at one time or another, and that wall can be instructive. Sometimes, the brick bastion is telling us that our subject just isn’t right. Perhaps, with a slight shift in focus, that façade will come tumbling down. So, like Bradbury, we power through. In other cases, that wall may be informing us that we don’t have the requisite passion to meet the subject at hand. Is it what we really want to speak to, or does it spring from someone else’s agenda? (To make a living, we must often do the latter, but even that can be a rewarding writing experience.) At times, that wall may simply be saying, “Go get some fresh air and fresh perspective.” A walk does wonders for writing.

In his book Zen in the Art of Writing, Bradbury goes on to say, “…if you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun…you are only half a writer…For the first thing a writer should be is…a thing of fevers and enthusiasms.” Perhaps, at the end of the day, this is the key to good writing. It’s not just the critique groups (which I find quite helpful) or the conferences or the how-to workbooks or the fine literature that seasons our lives. It’s that we write about something we love, something we want to celebrate with others, something worth sharing. That’s the beauty of Christian literature, when it’s done right. The writer has something important to share.           

As writers, we’ve been gifted with a message to share, but sometimes our craft fights us. That’s the way life is. Sometimes our story fights us enough to put up walls, and those walls may simply be signposts leading us toward better approaches to our writing. No wall is insurmountable, and all walls have a lesson to teach

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Writer, lecturer and artist Michael Carroll has over thirty books in print. He is a science journalist, novelist, and—collaborating with his wife—children’s author. One of his paintings is on the surface of Mars—in digital form—aboard the Phoenix lander. He likes orange marshmallow circus peanuts, which have undoubtedly been outlawed by the nutritional councils of several countries.