Being back home in my writing studio with deadlines and pressures after living in the sweet absence of anxiety in a southern Italy village is a bit of an adjustment. I relate anew to the notion of "writer’s block." I have lived more than half my life as a writer and I have only on rare occasion had to deal with writer’s block. To be honest, I've never really believed in writer’s block, but there I was, back in the States, staring at my desk which was heaped to the ceiling with unfinished work, and I was unable to tackle it. Unable!

In the past I have believed writer’s block was not a matter of being blocked, but rather, an absence of desire. The writer doesn't want to write and therefore, doesn't. Punto.

There I sat, senza Italia, forlorn and dumb before my computer screen. I felt as if I had never sculpted a single graceful sentence in English. I could barely make sense of answering my e-mails.

My publisher called and said they were waiting with great anticipation for the sequel to my novel, I LOVE YOU LIKE A TOMATO, and I felt as though writing that book was a million miles from my abilities. I tried working on some of the new chapters I wrote while in Italy and nothing looked right. Oh-oh. Could this be writer's block?

I thought of the countless students I've taught to unsnarl the tentacles of such a state, the many writers I've championed in methods of breaking the spells that bind to keep their fingers moving on the keys of their computers.

I remembered one of my most popular lectures on unleashing the creative powers within and the seminars I've given to teachers giving them tools to stir up the creative juices in their students. I thought I should be able to take my own advice to overcome my woeful condition. After-all, I had helped hundreds of others with the problem, hadn't I? Truth be known, all I wanted to do was sit in a chair and read. I wanted to pray, to seek God in my life. I wanted to know God's will for me and my work. I didn't want to put my nose to the grindstone just yet.

Something I always make my students do is to identify their own truth. It's a big assignment and one that covers a semester. We lay aside the cliches, the common, the shallow. We enter the writer's examined life and we work at what that means. By the end of the semester my students are writing poems and stories that do, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson, "blow the top of one's head off."

My old writing mentor, Kate Braverman, always talked about the writer's relationship with the page. The page, the page, the page. Now I gave myself permission to be quiet on the page. I stayed quiet on the page. I didn't meet the page every day with my river of words. I didn't walk with the page, dream with the page, sing with the page, live with the page.

I didn't bow to the page.

When I emerged from my silence I knew the time was right. I was energized and encouraged. I had a sense of confidence; oh, not in myself and my talents, but in something much, much bigger. I am grateful, as a Christian, to be able to move beyond the confines of a demanding professional and personal life, beyond 9-11 and the horrors taking place in our world, and enter into a "it is well with my soul" reality from which flows creativity.

Someone once said, "We are never free to create as long as we're resisting, judging, bellyaching or attempting any kind of control." I think that word control may be a key to what we call writer’s block. Maybe losing control over our work is the best way to gain control. Sound confusing?

When I allowed myself the misery of not writing, I was able to deal with deeper questions having to do with much more than my writing life which will one day end. I realize I am capable of tying myself in small knots working with feverish intensity to control my art. I become so invested in the art of my art, I lose the spontaneous sense of being in the right place at the right time doing the thing that counts, no matter how hard or ridiculous or impossible. Are you with me?

I don't love and hate writing like some writers tell me they feel about their work. I love the work I feel called to, punto, and not because I'm any good at it or because people read my stuff, but because I know I am placing my life's energy where it should be. This is my prayer for you.
-- Marie

Comments? Want to discuss this subject? Send me your responses: marie@mariejordan.com