For most of my brief writing journey, I have bristled at the existence of “writer’s block”. I didn’t believe that it was an actual thing - and to be honest, I still don’t quite accept it as something that is real.
I have looked at writing and art in the same way a farmer looks at the agriculture cycle of planting, growing harvesting, and then fallowing.
Planting Season
A seed of an idea or feeling gets lodged in the topsoil of my heart. I turn my pen into a shovel and I start digging a deeper hole on the blank page for this seed to start spreading roots.
I have no real idea what is inside this seed of unwritten words. I just know that these seeds were only given to me so that they can someday come to life. I am just a farmer of words - this is my job.
Growing Season
I alternate pouring the water of my most heartfelt thoughts onto the page and then letting the soft light of not worrying a damn about what anyone else will think about what I’m writing help this seed begin to tremble and burst.
This growing season can last for pages or just a single line - it really depends on what kind of crop I’m growing. Again, I never know the seed was until I see the first buds coming up for air and light.
Harvest
When the words are done bursting and blooming on the soil of the page I’m writing on it’s then time to share with others.
There is no hoarding or stockpiling these words I’ve written. I hand out the fruit of my crops immediately. Not because I think they are wanted or because my ego has an itch to scratch.
I just don’t have the storage space under the barnyard cellar door of my conscience to hold onto all of these crops I’ve grown.
Fallowing
In agricultural terms, fallowing is a farming technique in which arable land is left without sowing for one or more vegetative cycles. The goal of fallowing is to allow the land to recover and store organic matter.
This part of the cycle is the most tricky one to navigate.
I believe that all artists, writers, storytellers, and humans, in general, need a period of rest. To let the soil in our souls have a time to regenerate from all of the hard word it has to do to grow beautiful little things.
This part of the creator’s cycle is what I have always assumed was misunderstood as “Writer’s Block” to be. We don’t give ourselves a chance to rest or to absorb nutrients and then the ground becomes a bit unusable to plant and grow in.
Then sometimes we get so used to resting that we forget how to plant again. We begin to doubt our farmer’s heart. We start to feel like we lost the ability to dig into the ground and grow our crops. It becomes easy to stop - and eventually, the fertile soil can start to become overgrown with the weeds of inactivity.
It can be so hard to pick up the shovel/pen again after sitting on our porch for too long.
This “Fallowing” is what I thought was “Writer’s Block” was. I believed this inability to create came from either not giving myself enough time to rest after the harvest - or when I allow myself way too much time to rest.
While that all still makes sense to me in regards to my cycle of “planting, growing, harvesting and fallowing” the fields of my poetic heart - it is no longer an absolute gospel.
These days, when I find myself unable to string words together -there is a new culprit.
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