Writer's Block

I stopped writing. I started consuming. I was reading. I was watching. I was crying. I was working. And I was thinking a lot about writing, what I should be writing, what I could be writing, what I should be writing, and what everyone else was writing. When you stop, how do you start again? How do you get unstuck? How do you dig yourself out of the abyss of taking life in and looking at everyone else's work and ideas and sifting through all of the world's incredible genius to find the ideas you know are inside of yourself? How do you get back to the place that you know you found before when the trigger happens that brings you to an abrupt halt? How many times has it happened for you? I imagine that once someone begins a project after decades, it is possible to put a whole book into pages or a computer in a matter of months. The words, outline, and ideas can literally flow in minutes, hours, and days when the well is pumped and the flowing, but once it stops, it literally is like ice or mud or even a drought that requires an engineer or team of people, a master muse to extract the rest out of the recesses of your mind. What is it that stops it? A memory, a smell, a song, grief, collision of barriers, flat tire, financial setback, death of a friend, loss of a romance, relationship problems, or even medical setbacks. Sometimes I believe it can be nothing. There is no answer.

I was not sure how why I wanted to get started writing again. I do miss the release of getting these emotions out of me. I experience so much in minutes, hours, and days. This dialogue that runs in my head could write novels and run so many ideas if I could dictate constantly. Sometimes I need the break. This has been such a long break, though.

Then once the words come out again, they are so much of a mess and just do not seem to be organized or anything that I am completely happy to put out into the world right away. It is kind of like the dirty water at the top of a well. The pure water follows. All of the nasty water and emotions are up at the top and just come gushing out first.