I love telling stories and for the most part I enjoy writing. But, sometimes it can be a tough row to hoe.
Sometimes I have the hardest time just to get a story started. It seems to get easier once I get started, but sometimes the whole thing can be agonizingly slow. Being a novice writer I chalked it up to inexperience, so I looked into whether veteran writers suffered the same fate. Come to find out, it's common for experienced writers to struggle through a story and can even come down with the dreaded writers block. I looked up what well known authors had to say on the subject and found some great quotes.
The famous English author J.K. Rowling explained it well when she wrote, "The wonderful thing about writing is that there is always a blank page waiting. The terrifying thing about writing is that there is always a blank page waiting." I can relate to that.
American author and writing professor John Gardner said, "The best way in the world for breaking up a writer's block is to write a lot." That's probably good advice, but I have so many other things to do that I don't have time to write a lot.
And then the great Mark Twain said, "The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one." I can use that advice for my writing and for all those other things I have to do.
I am right now taking the advice of German-American poet and novelist Charles Bukowski who wrote, "Writing about a writer's block is better than not writing at all."
There is also some matter-of-fact opinions on the subject, such as as English writer Sir Philip Pullman pointed out, "All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don't get plumber's block, and doctors don't get doctor's block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expects sympathy for it?"
One of my favorites though, comes from English author and humorist Terry Pratchett who said, " There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write."
When I first started writing Rural Male in the May 26, 2022 edition of the Bridge Weekly, I read William Zinsser's book, On Writing Well. Zinsser was a columnist for Life magazine between 1968 and 1972. He wrote as a freelancer for several well known publications like the Saturday Evening Post, Look, Audubon and he taught writing at Yale University. If that isn't enough he also wrote 19 books.
I loved Zinsser's advice and tried to put it into action; strip every sentence of unnecessary words and clutter, simplify, entertain the readers by entertaining yourself as you write. Advice that I read and tried to follow, but over time I continued to get way too wordy and tried to use words way too much to explain things in great detail which ended in muddied sentences like this. See what I mean?
I really want to write good entertaining stories and I have been rereading On Writing Well, to help get me there. At the same time I have to finish getting in my firewood and a host of other fall projects. I have started working in a good routine of writing until I get antsy and then going out for physical work. While I'm working I can run inside to type a thought when I think of it.
This is one of those subjects that can go on forever, but I have to get outside and see how many wheelbarrow loads of firewood I can get in before dark. Winter's coming.

Ken Batten grew up on a small sheep farm in West Topsham VT. He was a logging contractor, soldier and rural mail carrier. He now lives in North Hyde Park VT with his wife Tina-Marie. You can contact Ken at kenbatvt@gmail.com or PO Box 5 N Hyde Park VT 05665

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