I had hoped to start blogging this year with a renewed vigour, but instead find myself staring at the computer screen waiting for the words to return to the tips of my fingers.
Have you ever had that feeling, you've got something to say, words on the tip of your tongue but you just can't find them? It's a great way to describe writers block... because even though the words are failing you can feel them burbling under the surface.
I remember years ago, going on a poetry retreat with a friend who is an amazing poet (and I believe she is now the poet laureate of the City of Victoria... a very witty and inspiring woman!) Anyways, prior to this retreat I was writing away, trying to get something half decent on paper to workshop while I was there but the only thing I could get out was either too rhymey or too whiney. Yet after a few days of workshopping these really bad poems at the retreat, something shifted in me, and I came away with something I was proud of.
Recently I was at a Steve Bell concert and he, a songwriter, was talking about writers block, about heading off alone to a friends cabin in the middle of nowhere and how it took days of sitting alone on the couch, just meditating on the scene in front of him before a song came burbling out.
It'll be a few months before I can head out on a weekend retreat but I think that is just what I need. In the meantime I'll have to start searching for ways to have mini retreats: a long walk, a good book, a hot bubblebath, a bikeride through the woods...
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