avatarJose Alexander Davila

Summarize

Thought Inundation & Bunking the Writer’s Block

Ryan Snaadt (Unsplash)

I think about thinking. I think a lot. One thought jumps from one to the next at lightspeed. Just give me a moment and let me catch some of these for myself damn it! Interesting is it that many times it feels out of my control. One thought blends into another in fascinating spontaneous creation. Did I come up with that? Was that me? Or was that a myriad of one abstract thought after another that created a culmination of all thoughts in one place? Then something distracts you. You hear a noise. You feel something on your skin. Now your attention is drawn away, but you’re still thinking. What was that that broke my concentration? What was that that piqued my interest?

I was so scared. I let thoughts blend into each other endlessly until it became dreamlike. I don’t know why I sometimes find that terrifying. It feels as if it’s not of my own volition. Like mind control, thoughts just take their place. But something is driving them. Something strange drives one ghostly thought to another. What do you suppose that is? There’s no off switch. There’s no button to push to turn off the thinking machine. You simply change course. You alter your thought patterns. You distract yourself, half or wholeheartedly, from what you were previously occupied with.

Call it a thought exercise, I suppose. Perhaps it was just another overwhelming wave of drivelous thought. Those come and go sometimes. You become so occupied with thought that you find it difficult to focus on particular tasks. It’s at these times that I find it so valuable to draft, actually. Just “get out of your own mind” for a bit. Put immediate thought into words in a spontaneous instant. What’s the first thing that pops into your mind? What are you currently experiencing at this very second? Got it? Great. Write that down. Do not allow self-doubt or fear to get in the way.

Shoot, that’s a whole lesson in fighting writer’s block, honestly. How easy it is to either “go blank” or inversely be so inundated with random thought that one finds it nearly impossible to draft anything of substance. What do you suppose you do in that situation? Do you want my advice? Write simple words. Forget about stringing sentences together; now you’re just looking to draft the seemingly random words that are falling to you from the ether. “Cow, parrot, parsnip, Mesa, agreeable”. All are examples of how you can simply draft literally anything that comes to mind. Forget about substance. Forget about fearing that somebody adjacent may think it’s no good or inferior. Just draft.

And that’s about all I’ve got for this one. Yeah, I’m not a fan of overwhelming numbers of thoughts or writer’s block either. However, I can’t help but think it somehow makes you a better writer. Athletes experience injuries. Singers lose their voice from time to time. Take some comfort in knowing that blockages within the mind are a natural occurrence to probably even the most avid of writers. I really couldn’t see it any other way.

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Writers Block
Thoughts
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