Into the Darkness I Go

I’ve been blocked lately.

I’ve found myself cowering from the computer and its word processor. Coming up with words to express on paper feels like a chore. I can’t just throw everything down on the page and call it a day, no. I have to make sure that it’s coherent, not only to me, but to a professor, a classmate, or some friends. To do that is to tap into a part of my mind that’s sick of analyzing sentences and pulling out meaning or significance from them. The need to string ideas together, to create a flow of phrases that culminate into something useful or entertaining to the reader, has, I feel, taxed me so much that I’ve had to stop writing.

I’ve missed turning in a paper, a thesis submission, and many writing sessions on my notebook. I think it’s burnout, but I don’t want to call it that. I want to think that my mind is overwhelmed. My standards for my writing have changed. I demand more of it, but I don’t feel like I’ve improved to my expectations. Even this blog is starting to look like a gigantic mess to me. I am disheartened.

I hope this is just another problem to get through, a hitch to overcome if I am to ever call myself a writer. Framing it this way makes the whole thing seem less despairing, less pointless. It’s still painful though.