Writer’s Abandoned House — not Writer’s Block.
By: Tiny Museum Of Musings, Clara Tang
Tags: Writers On Writing, Writers Block, Letters, Writing Tips, Writing

You’re wearing boots, and the laces are tied the way someone who cared about you taught you to do so. You remember to double knot, so they don’t cascade and get caught in soil. There’s a path that you once always walked along, and you’re still walking alongside it — until you reach an archway of an abandoned house. Before we press on: Don’t worry about taking off your shoes. It doesn’t feel safe to be barefoot for now. There are rocks and soil instead of polished hardwood. You tread carefully.

The doorway has vines snaking across its remaining skeleton, a simple arch, no door. But you still feel as if it’s impolite to skip knocking on something. There is no door. The vines make their nest amongst the rusting appliances. In a corner, a (barely recognisable) pot. There is a pen balanced on the rim. A tawny owl blinks at you as if to say, About time. This place, this room, once housed the words you kneaded into dough before you snuffed the fire out, took your cloak and left ‘for a walk’.

Writers are the best at abandoning their homes. Writing is best when a home is abandoned momentarily. This year, I stretch my arms out once more and try to create things that I got better at consuming the past few years. English Majors (current or graduated) pick apart things with knife and fork, critiquing as if it matters whether the stew is warm or lukewarm. I have become a picky-eater of words, which is what leads me to abandon my own sometimes. I realise the notion for why I stopped writing for a while is stupidly simple: if I don’t write anything, if I do not create, there are no words for picky-eaters!

FEAR. That’s what it’s really called.

Many wordsmiths, myself included, are incredulously good at meal-prep in the context of brewing a writing piece. I know just how to slice a feeling into tenths, split the seed of an adjective, and scatter it to share with every sentence I know. Extract the core but simmer it until it evaporates entirely. Eye-balling it.

There is scarcely anything quite like the terror of watching someone read your work. Reading someone’s gestures is a terrifying activity when you show them your writing. Though this is no horror house and there are no jump-scares, turning of ambiguous corners, bloodied bodies, you are aware in an instant that everything you create or write is an apartment viewing. Is it warm enough here? Is there enough light streaking in? Do you like the decor? Could I get you anything else to drink so that my terrible writing is not the only thing you are drinking? I hide in my writing when I do create it. It becomes a home of sorts. There’s the frantic spring cleaning that occurs when you’ve written something new. You’ll want to polish the place before you invite a guest over. Hurry! Maintain the garden by snipping off all the thorns! Quick! Hide the comma splices which you still do regardless of the shame they receive!

I started writing again with letters, words prompted by the heart in response to and communicating so much care that the fear of writing dims in humility and gradual resignation. Letters have a simple but lovely notion: write to those you feel comfortable with. Even so, I have tried to understand that their warmth and comfort may never fully absorb the fear of being read. But, but, the way I choose to see it is that the fear stems more from having a reader that you care about. You do not want to waste their time or energy. But you trust them rather than thinking they will run your words through a shredder. There is something safe in the delay of letters. All letters require a delay of some sort. The passing of the letter, in its blank enveloped body with faint pen marks seeping through but never clear enough to read then and there. Maybe letter-writing is like berry-picking (full disclosure, I’ve never been, I only imagine) (we are great at imagining). One basket (as much surface as the chosen paper allows), a time-limit (the note has to end somewhere) and I end up with more berries than I intended. Can I have another basket? Then you send it off to simmer in the warm palms of whoever receives it. You don’t get to see their reactions unless you choose to make them read it in front of you (brave, I think). Letters allow for patience. Take as much time as you need, I think they say. This is the date I wrote this, but it is an entire slab of words that can overwhelm you at first. Chew them carefully! I’ll still be here when you are done.

However, I am aware the heroism of snail mail has a fatal flaw: handwriting. More specifically, my handwriting. My words huddle so closely together, as if there is never enough body-warmth, they squish and squish and squish. I rarely ask, but I’m sure the first few letters I wrote to a darling kindred-one made her squint and squint and squint. Fingerprints, handwriting can be. Alike, but never the same. There is a monstrosity in handwritten letters. Unruly kelp forests meant to be coherent strings of thought. Write a letter some time. It can do so much for you and your chosen reader.

The year closes in similar to waves rolling to shore. I work on writing fictional worlds again, short-stories (better known), I feel as if I’m putting the kettle back on. The vines of my abandoned writer’s scape watch me closely. I rest an inkpot on one of its curling arms and peel my ingredients. Serving size: not that important.

C.