When the words just don’t come.

I’m going to start this post with an apology, I’m sorry for how quiet the blog has been lately. It’s been for a number of reasons; I was away on holiday, then we had visitors for just over a month and as important as the blog is to me anyone who has read my previous posts will know that my family  and friends are an incredibly big part of my life and so taking time away to write while they were here just wasn’t something I wanted to do, I wanted to make the very most of all of the time I had with them (which was fabulous).  Since then; well I could list excuses – I’ve been busy, I had computer issues, I had Montreal friends who were leaving the city and I wanted to make the most of my time with them….. and while all of these are true, they are to be honest just excuses, as I still had ample ways and time to write.

Truthfully I just haven’t been able to get my head into it lately. I don’t know if this is because of the break that I had from writing whilst we were on holiday and then had visitors and whether getting out of my routine of writing has simply broken my stride but for the last few weeks I haven’t even been able to look at my laptop. The sight of the blank page makes me feel terrible, anxious, annoyed and in no way productive. I guess if you want to put a label on it (my generation love a label don’t we?) I have had writers block. From googling (we also love Google) I can see that I’m definitely not alone here, this is a really common problem but wow it’s frustrating, and it’s really knocked me for six.

Since I started the blog a few months ago it’s not something I’ve had any issue with, I tend to open the page and the words just start flowing. These past few weeks though that has been so far from the case. It’s not that I don’t have ideas for blog posts, I have literally hundreds of them buzzing around my head (which makes it a very messy place to be), scribbled in my notebook and many of them even already half written on my computer but getting any further with them has just been impossible. That has been the most frustrating part. I know what I want to write about it, I even know what I want to say but I just can’t physically put the words down and the more I think about it the more frustrated I become and the more impossible a task it seems.

The Scottish in me doesn’t like to shy away from a problem; we are inherently known for having to face things straight on. We’d rather have a blazing argument with someone, get it over with and clear the air rather than shy away from it and in this sense I am definitely that stereotypical Scot. So that is why this post is what it is. Me standing up to my writer’s  block. Me addressing the situation. And you know what, as soon as I decided that I was going to write about it I have sat down, started writing and haven’t stopped. It was a giant elephant in the room and now that I have addressed it, it doesn’t seem so scary anymore.

I’m writing this in a little local café and I’m pretty sure I’m driving the other customers crazy by how frantically my keyboard is clicking as now that I’ve started writing it seems that the words wont stop. I can’t wait to get onto my other posts which have been sitting abandoned waiting for some love and attention for weeks, get them finished and out to you guys. I also can’t wait to get the new ideas in my head down, clear space for new ones and get back on track. Sometimes all it takes is to own up to how you’re feeling, address it and deal with it. Now granted not all situations are as easy to deal with as this has been, writing it down definitely doesn’t fix all of life’s problems. But ignoring problems and letting them fester and grow bigger [in your head] most definitely doesn’t help either. So whatever you’re dealing with, it’s better to just channel your inner Scot and address it face on.

Now that I’ve taken my  own advice, its time to write.  🙂