Comments on: Synchronicity, Part 2: Eddy or Current, Eddy or Current.

By: nadinethornhill

nadinethornhill — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:52:57 +0000

Douglas Coupland is my secret CanLit boyfriend. I’ve devoured every one of his novels…except JPod. JPod is like having my boobs fondled. It’s good. I like it. But I’m not going to finish.

By: sterlinglynch

sterlinglynch — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:01:41 +0000

Curiously, Catcher in the Rye never really resonated with me which seems odd because I probably was the target market. I remember liking Franny and Zoe more. I've lost the taste for fiction but I will check out Holdin if it ever takes hold again. I am experimenting with Jpod -- a book Lady Rose left behind after her visit to Ottawa.

By: Mare

Mare — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:42:23 +0000

I can routinely experience writers’ *resistance*. There’s always great stuff to write about – whether it makes me uncomfortable or not – but where I get caught is somewhere between laziness and abject terror. Yeah, that’s pretty much where I live. As to the books that have shaped my life, I’d have to say Catcher in the Rye. In high school it’s a right of passage story, but in my 30’s I found Holdin’s desperate grief over the loss of his brother. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, too, by extension. And finally, I liked mixed groups… provided the males are cabana boys.

By: sterlinglynch

sterlinglynch — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:48:34 +0000

Thanks and I am glad you enjoyed it.

If the same sort of mechanism affects you, I suspect it will probably end up explaining “a fondness for procrastination”. Technically, that really just means “I like not doing what I know I should be doing” and that’s very similar to “not writing what I should be writing” and probably even results in similar behaviors — lying around or frittering away at other activities. The more important question will probably be “why and how did I develop a fondness for not achieving my goals” when most writer’s experience writer’s block as a kind of anxious unpleasantness.

By: Wayne C.

Wayne C. — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:16:03 +0000

An excellent read and I totally agree with your assessment of exclusively male activities. Especially, when they happen outdoors. I still remember the only camp I ever went to as a kid (all boys between 10-14). It pretty much was a more subdued Lord of Flies (no one got killed but there were a few injuries).
Interesting perspective on writers block. I’ll have to pay greater attention to see if something similar is happening when I experience it. I have a feeling with me it is occurs because of a fondness for procrastination combined with a hyper critical internal voice that can occasionally paralyze me.

By: nadinethornhill

nadinethornhill — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:41:22 +0000

That absolutely happens to me. I was struggling all week to write a poem of my own this week. Then I realized that I was trying to avoid saying something. So I wrote that very thing. Voila…poem!

By: sterlinglynch

sterlinglynch — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:43:02 +0000

Thanks! I do try to slip a little prose poetry in when I can … And good eye, it was that white-water canoeing image / memory that was the catalyst for the whole post. I was experiencing something akin to writer’s block and that image popped into my head and I immediately popped into the writer’s chair.

My current writer’s block theory: it happens when there is something I really need to write but consciously or unconsciously I am avoiding writing it.

By: nadinethornhill

nadinethornhill — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:32:16 +0000

Your last paragraph reads like a bit of poetry. Next time I have writer’s block maybe I’ll try white-water canoeing. Inspiration for decades!