The Peculiar Case of Writer's Block

The Client:

Ash is a young woman who for many years found herself with a severe bout of writer's block. Now that she is writing again she asked the detective to help her pinpoint what was the cause so that it could be avoided in the future.

The Case:

It started about eight years ago in a small wooden house, atop a small hill in Fox Club Road. The clouds were hanging heavy in the sky, so low that they seemed to brush the tops of the mango trees. The wind disturbed the leaves and caused them to brush against each other, this sound was the only noise in the otherwise current neighbourhood.

In the house, one light was on the front house where a girl sat before her desktop computer and started at  a blank word document. Try as she might, the words would not come. It was so bad that she could not even finish one sentence.

This was great departure from her teen years during which she was a prolific poet, often reading her poems in class and before the school assemblies. In more recent times she would write upwards of three thousand words a day when working on one of her romance novel projects.

Now though, the blank whiteness of the page expanded before her eyes until she felt imprisoned in a room with white walls. The glare of the screen mimicked a bright light hanging down from the ceiling and in this prison, she let phrases and ideas rattle around in her brain but yet nothing spilled forth.

In this white room, there was no comfort for a soul that was silenced. Outside of this room the world continued on, unmoved by the plight of a young woman who had lost her voice.

In her despair she even believed that she was now void of talent; that whatever magic that had brought words spilling from her fingertips not too long ago, had deserted her; it had dried up, turned to dust and blown away.

What other's called writer's block was a death sentence her life long dream of completing a book. Shame replaced despair eventually, and she shied away from the task of writing for long periods of time.  For weeks at a time she would not even open a journal or the word processor for fear that she would be mocked by the blankness of the page.

Sometimes she would manage a paragraph or two but before the words themselves attacked her. They were hollow and did not feel real. The writing was mechanical and forced.
The pleasure of knowing that she was releasing her inner magic was gone and she she withdrew from the art of writing all together and lay her dreams of being an author to rest.

Fast forward to 2014, which for her was a year of transformation the included hiring a life coach, starting a business, learning to surf and exploring a cave. Eventually the young woman decided to attempt to write articles about personal finance, it was a vast departure from her previous attempts at writing but she was hoping to cultivate a habit.

This worked like a charm;  soon she was once again writing prose and was started a new blog producing content rich with her experiences and personality.

The Detective's Say:

I cannot say when the writer block fully melted but  but I can tell you what had been missing. This young woman was running from her past, hiding from her mistakes and living life half-way.

The inspiration that had driven her writing before had always been stripped from her surroundings, in closing her eyes to the beauty and yes, the pain of this wonderful world, she lost the fuel for the fire.

When she came out of her shell and embraced the world, gathering experience after experience and taking risks, the words returned.