I can’t write anymore.
Tags: Writers Block, Writers On Writing, Writing Tips, Confessions, Writers Life

Yup, you’re not alone.

I won my first ever writing contest when I was eight with an essay about my dream of becoming the next president.

I never thought I would have won that because I actually just made it up. I knew by that time, at my early age, being a politician is one of the most hated professions in the world. Instead, I dreamt of becoming a TV producer, a writer, or a mom. But I chose to expound on a topic that I thought would stir the judges’ interest — an eight-year-old from a family dwelling at the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy aiming the highest, literally, for her family and her country.

Then I won.

And I wish I didn’t because from then on, I brought that memory with me to keep me company in my lonesome episodes of self-doubt. I appreciated the fact that at my early age, I had a good vantage point in writing. However, it also led me to deep frustration growing up that I became alienated from my passion.

I used to love writing. I started with scribbles on my journal. I wrote essays, fiction, poems, you name it. I even wrote a eulogy for myself after being heartbroken over Hazel Grace’s tearful pre-funeral speech for Augustus. I thought it was a pretty cool idea, except that I wrote it for myself.

I used to love writing, and I still love writing. But I feel like I can’t write, or at least I don’t know how to write.

I have lots of unfinished drafts. I have drafts on my Wix site. I have drafts on Medium. I have drafts on memo. I even have handwritten drafts.

I have drafts everywhere.

And I have not finished a single thing. I never understood why.

It just felt like being betrayed by your sleek arrogant cat when she all of a sudden decided to rub her body around your chatty neighbor’s leg. You were fine one day, the next thing you know, you’re lost on a half-blank page, and you end the half-paragraph with, “And I can’t write anymore, either.”

Exactly! That does not even connect. Nothing is connecting.

What is it called? That familiar space of ineptness to accomplish something you love. That constant internal war of wanting to write and not-writing. Is it the famous “writer’s block”? Or am I just being overcritical? Is it a lack of confidence or lack of life experience? Is it procrastination or just pure laziness?

I don’t know.

But whatever you call it, it sure as heck devoured me like an open prey in the wild. It feasted on my self-loathing and insecurity that I repeatedly disparaged my first childhood victory to disown my passion. It made me bitter. It made me believe that the only reason people supported me is that I made them think that I am a writer. It made me think of all the worst versions that I could think of about myself.

And it still does.

But I realize since I’m unbelievably close to finishing this story, whatever you want to call it, that maybe I am not that too bad as I think I am.

Maybe my inner struggle doesn’t make me less of a writer. That our minds at some point wander and lost their way, but it’s just temporary. Maybe I should stop believing that my inability is synonymous with failure. And I should keep on trying, as what the thousand self-help “What to do when you can’t write?” articles say.

Don’t stop trying, don’t stop starting because you’ll never know what draft will help you publish your first story.

“In the cycle of nature there is no such thing as victory or defeat; there is only movement.”

Maybe I should stop tolerating my predator in pulling me down because the truth is people believe in me. After all, they don’t just know me as a writer but this creative storyteller who nailed at screenplay pitch in college. Or maybe, they also see me as this eight-year-old kid who’s just purely clever to tackle politics in her winning essay, knowing that the judge was a mayor.

Interestingly, I am more than my disappointments.

Maybe I should start looking at myself and learn how to be the first person to believe in myself. I should stop comparing myself with others and stop using it as self-sabotage. I should turn my weaknesses into an opportunity to learn and confront my doubts. If I feel like I need to start from scratch and do it all over again, maybe I should do it.

And then, maybe — just maybe — my ideas will tap me on my shoulder, tell me with enthusiasm to start writing again.