The Writer's Block-down

"Now that you have a lot of time in your hand, why don't you write?"

This is a question many writers and bloggers have faced, especially during this shutdown.

Writer's block is something every writer goes through when they run out of inspiration. It's a disdainful feeling of being stumped and dissatisfied. And this takes a whole new toll on writers now that they are stuck at home.

Home quarantine has given us a lot of time on our hands, but what people often tend to forget is that time is not the only thing a writer requires to write. You need inspiration, you need to observe. Brilliant write-ups stem from careful and active observation. There's a difference between just researching and actively observing. When you are doing the latter, you try to understand and pinpoint what's going on around you. You just don't see and hear, you try to interpret the hows and whys and read between the lines. But when you are stuck inside four walls, it's pretty difficult to observe new things. When you go to different places, you experience and observe so many things that help you generate innovative ideas. With the shutdown though, coming up with new ideas is really difficult.

Another thing that makes writer's block more troublesome now is the present news consumption. If you refresh your news feed, then every time at least one new piece of information or news pops up. And the current, depressing situation is an enemy on its own. Writers are humans too and they also need a sound mental health state to write anything. One might argue that the present circumstance is a good prompt itself, but often when writers are struggling with writing, they feel that whatever they think has been written or talked about already. This is almost always true but that's where social interactions come in. The different ways of interacting with people is what sets apart two individuals facing the same situation. The amazing characters we read in books are all results of the writers using their interactions or/and  experiences with people. It is how you perceive situations which gives you incentive to draft a work. So all in all, it's a quite difficult phase right now.

However, as statistics go, writers are surfacing above these and publishing their work. Even if there aren't always fresh out of the oven ideas, there are still topics to fill up the pages through a variety of lenses. So, next time you read something, know that the people behind it are trying their best despite the adversities to put out content that you would love.

You can reach out to the author at 01shreshtha7@gmail.com