On Writer’s Block: an Essay

I haven’t puked in over nine years. Understandably, most people would consider me fortunate, as vomiting is not usually regarded as an enjoyable activity. However, I am often plagued with a far more devastating condition than the stomach flu. Food poisoning is a sunny afternoon in the park in comparison to the despicable curse I must too frequently bear. To the average person, this grave affliction is known as writer’s block.
For an accountant, writer’s block is simply an annoyance, a moment of frustration. But to a seasoned novelist or even an angst-ridden teenager, writer’s block is a crippling malady. The inability to record the day’s events in a biting poem or witty short story is equivalent to a goldfish’s inability to breathe out of water. Remove Mr. Guppy from his habitat and he’ll desperately flop around, vacantly blinking his slimy helpless eyes until the inevitable happens. You’ve removed his means of survival. Such is the development of writer’s block for a writer; his purpose is removed. But this poor and irritated victim cannot look forward to the solace of an eternal end to quiet his heart’s yearning, as creative congestion is not fatal however much it may seem so. The blocked writer must forever wait in limbo. Life becomes a meaningless pattern: eat, work, attempt to sleep. The elusive “right words” will keep him up at night. He’ll sweat in his sheets, taunted by the unreachable perfect stanza until finally, he will drift into restless, haunting dreams before waking again to the betrayal of his alarm clock.
It isn’t difficult to see why I would much rather spend an evening clutching the cold, porcelain rim of food poisoning than an hour in the debilitating clutches of imaginative constipation. I would gladly trade a kidney for the opportunity to have a few cute verses published in a greeting card. Unfortunately, there is no such bargain. As an oft infected school teacher must accept the reality of a nine-month-long cold, the blocked artist must too look forward to summer vacation, the all-too-brief reprieve from an ugly foe.
When rhetoric escapes the desperate writer, it is not unlike the rejection of a cherished lover. He reminisces on the bright days spent in the company of alliteration and allegory, the nights wrapped in the warmth of metaphor and metonymy. He curses himself for taking the loose pen for granted, and longs for its return, only to be teased by rare glimpses of his past love. Creativity returns just long enough to once again whet his appetite and remind him of his bondage to the page. What nightmare may claim to be more gut wrenching than the loss of one’s ability to act on his only passion? While most would scoff at the idea of exchanging physical health for little more than literary diarrhea, I would certainly leap at the chance, as this is a heartache I am much too familiar with. So the next time I find myself begging the afternoon’s lobster bisque to remain captive, I will take a moment to be thankful that I’m capable of spewing anything at all.