I am tempted to continue with this trope, using the anniversary to reflect on a year of COVID-19. But what can I accomplish with a thoughtful rumination on these extraordinary times? There is little to say beyond what I've already posted over nearly one hundred occasions on TOA. It also occurs to me that the fact of a one-year milestone is arbitrary - it would otherwise be COVID-20; the milestone says more about my zip code than it does anything else. This moment may commemorate the year that has happened to me, but it speaks little of the year that has happened because of me. This final point leads me to an uncomfortable admission - this year, and particularly in these past few months, very little has happened in my life because of me. I am sure this is relatable for anyone who has spent the past year on the passive side of the pandemic, embracing the strategy of living by not living during this challenging period.
Those readers who have carefully observed this space may have an additional sense of familiarity with my revelation. The past year began with a return to 2019's experiment with daily posting, and I found plenty to write about throughout most of the calendar year. The challenges started around the holiday period, which I could blame on any number of commonly cited factors - COVID burnout, work challenges, even Zoom fatigue - but it's simpler to state that I ran out of topics; I would sit in front of the computer until I admitted that I had nothing to put on the page. The numbers back this up - my daily average time spent writing has fluctuated regularly over the past four months, with each dip setting a new floor while each rebound fell shy of the 2020 standard. On those occasions when I managed to escape my lethargy, I found that the figurative pen moved across the blank pages without the familiar energy, purpose, or conviction from earlier in the year. At long last, I had encountered the mythical enemy known as writer's block, and like any unexpected skirmish with a great opponent I did not even begin to fight until the battle was all but lost.
My mind had always dismissed the possibility of encountering this foe while working on TOA. Wasn't writer's block reserved for the creatives, those who burden themselves with the task of inventing with each syllable? The invention of TOA is true only along technical lines - nothing exists here until I put it down - but for the most part the writing is more about decisions than creations, more about selection than generation; I recall what's already happened, then I determine its place in the work. Another part of me always thought writer's block was a negative consequence of the business in writing, an occupational hazard for the professionals who are forever constrained by word counts, style guides, and deadlines. I refuted this hypothesis by taking away the pressure - this past week featured just three posts, which I think hasn't happened since 2017, but I remain mobilized against immobilization. My situation was much like the global situation was at this time last year - the rumors were true, the unthinkable was here, and I needed to deal with the opponent like a nation going to war.
There has been enough said (and written) about writer's block that I knew what to expect once I accepted the challenge. However, I was entirely unprepared for one specific aspect - writer's block is a direct assault on the mentality of the writer, specifically in the way it generates an overwhelming sense of anxiety; my experience leaves me sympathetic to anyone who might carelessly relate it to a more serious mental health concern, though I would discourage the specific comparison. The daily battle soon developed a familiar script - a few minutes of struggle as I searched for an opening, then the growingly familiar refrains of "when will it end" or "what's the point" or "isn't there a better use of time", each thought reminding me that the defense which had once kept these questions at bay was no longer available to me. The last question was particularly brutal, for like any writer I know the truth: there is always a better use of time - reading, running, lying facedown on the floor like a pancake seeking a spatula. The list of things to do instead of writing are compelling enough even in the best of times, so understandably the problem of being unable to write made it all the more difficult to maintain the motivation for writing.
The over-the-counter remedy for writer's block has a simplicity that appeals to both novices and seasoned veterans - work on multiple things at once, moving from one project to the next anytime the inspiration, motivation, or external pressure dries up. Again, there is a logic here, but it's like buying new socks instead of putting the soiled pairs into the washer. I have accumulated a pile of half-drafts and opening paragraphs over these past few weeks that would be the envy of any writing workshop, but perhaps a different perspective would compare the stack to a hoarder's filing cabinet and offer to bring the contents to the shredder bin. The problem with having a bulk of my work "in progress" is that I am taking a craft that requires deep concentration and turning into an interruption-driven exercise; the essay that gets my attention is the easiest essay to move forward, not the essay stuck for lack of attention. There is something about this tactic that may work on a short-term basis, but like most permanent temporary solutions it eventually does more to deny the problem rather than address the core issue.
I suppose I can only conclude, like scores of others before me, that writer's block therefore belongs in that despised class of incurable ills, for which we hope of a cure without setting expectations or timelines. The best we can do is to manage the condition, and to have compassion for our peers who are caught by the dark force of the affliction. I ask for your courtesy in this moment, when I have nothing to say on the one-year anniversary of a historic period in human history. Must I produce a bulleted essay because others have published listicles? Do I need to share what I've learned because others have graduated from Pandemic University? The problem is the same as I noted above - I have nothing to say about the pandemic because the pandemic reflects little about me. There was only so much I could write about hospices before I began volunteering, and I've written nothing about them in this past year when my service was surplus to requirements.
Perhaps this is the realization we should take from our bouts with writer's block - when the conscious mind cannot handle the steering wheel, writer's block steps in and slams the brakes, reminding us that there is indeed nothing to write about in this moment. There would be something unarticulated in anything I could write about the past year, like the way a science textbook might describe a severe sunburn without ever mentioning its effect on the next night's sleep. The writer's block, in the sense of being an obstacle, protects us from our worst work at the cost of preventing us from completing any work - it's the barrier between the observer and the scene, and it remains in place until we find our way around the obstruction. They talk in physics about the observer effect, the way an act of observation inevitably changes the object being observed, and perhaps there is an application in this context, the writer's effect, or possibly affect - the work grows out of seeing the topic from a unique perspective, and capturing the way this new point of view changed the observation. It may be that writer's block is simply an admission that we do not yet have the necessary perspective to see the work, like a viewer squinting into the infinite flatness of an autostereogram; the picture will emerge when we are ready to see it.
And yet, audaciously, we go for it again, trying to round the same bend that has been the site of so many crashes. The best writers are probably to blame for their gift is to make themselves invisible in the work, hiding their presence and influence over the final result, and so we amateurs make a go of it ourselves, treating our topic like a still life while ignoring the decisive role of perspective. It's not enough to capture the facts or the details, for there is no art in it; the observer makes the art, seeing things from any and all angles, until the right perspective transforms the everyday into the significant. The crux of the past year is that we have been stripped of certain experiences, restricted from exploring the uncharted, without which we became less capable of observing the art in life. We were promised the freedom of the open road, then forced to obey the lines cemented into place. As I've noted here and elsewhere, this past year has been defined mostly by what has happened to us, and it is therefore lacking in what has happened because of us. Surely, there is a better use of time? I think not, I think we must stick to this path, and follow it as it unfolds, observing what and when we can, until we see it once again - the freedom in the open road, the art in the still life, and the words on the blank page.
