The last year has been tough writing-wise for me. I know, I talk and talk like I’m all prolific and stuff. Truth is, 75% of what I’ve had published this year, I wrote before this year. The other 25% – flash fiction I wrote in about fifteen minutes. I’m not completely proud of that, but I like both the flash stories so it could be worse.

I wrote my 50k last Novemember and then just ground to a halt. I’ve been struggling with block ever since. I’ve been reading and soul searching and watching people and staring at blank documents on my computer. I’ve even got 1/4-1/2 finished stories littering my USB drive.

Part of the problem was Old Work. It pretty much sucked the soul right out of me. The last two years of my life all the way up to July were pretty much the worst depression I’ve ever suffered. I’ll come clean now and say that the number of times I thought about killing myself was too many to count on my fingers and toes. This was something I never said aloud (except to my wife), because I’m really not big on calling that kind of attention to myself. I like to call other kinds of attention to myself.

When I was twelve I made what I thought at the time was a brilliant statement, but turned out to be not so smart. I told the other girls at church that I’d learned how to get compliments. “The best way to get someone to compliment you is to put yourself down. ‘I’m so fat’. To which everyone responds ‘No you’re not.'”. It turned out they didn’t like this introspection and it moved me a notch closer to outcast.

But Old Work is gone now. I’m (surprisingly) happy with new work. The last three and a half months have been mental healing time. The depression is gone as are the 18 hour a day/6 day a week work weeks, and the desire and inspiration is starting to flow back again. I’ve got some mental blocks going on still, though. There are certain emotions I can’t reach internally because I cut them off to survive Old Work.

As a second aside – those Forbes Top 100 Companies to Work For Lists? Old Company was on there.

I need them back. I tap my own emotion pretty heavily when I write. It’s why I have to isolate myself when I write. I suppose I could learn to do without that, but I kind of like the rush. It’s vicarious living, but in my own words instead of in someone else’s book or movie.

I’m thinking about getting drunk this weekend. If you’re wondering, no I don’t do this often. I have a glass of wine with dinner about once every six months. It’s probably been five years since I had more than that. But my newest (probably not so) brilliant idea, is that maybe it’ll clear the mental block. Not that I want to write while I’m drunk, but that it might be like that final cathardic release I’m looking for.

Or, I could just be woefully repressed and need to get over myself.

Hmm…

Any unorthadox ways you have of clearing the writer’s block? You know, the stuff they don’t suggest in your typical ‘clear the block’ lists?