Creative Block

The poem is a wonderful expression of the writer’s perspective on what writer’s block is using creative analogies and similes. We hope this helps to put words to the block writers experience in their writing.

-

A creative block is to me a grey square room.

No doors or windows and I'm in solitude;

A shrinking prison, and I'm claustrophobic.

I try to speak with my lips sealed shut;

Hands tied behind my back.

It is a silencing.

I'm trying to think but my mind is the hissing static of an old tv screen.

Unbearable when I'm regulated;

Even worse when drowning in emotion.

Leaves no room to process; to feel.

It is nothingness.

When my mind cannot soulfully put one word next to another,

My vocabulary, suddenly handicapped.

When my hands can't remember the correct pressure for brush strokes;

I've forgotten colour theory and can't envision proportions anymore;

I am at my bleakest.

The frustration is a dull persistent ache that begs for soothing.

My esteem is shattered and nothing I've created before matters.

I'm suddenly an imposter; a fraud.

It is a straitjacket for my mind, and I'm struggling to escape.

I am nothing without what I create.