Writer's Block

My knee will never do this again.

My brain isn't ready to write. Can you tell by my very creative blog title?

Yet here I am: motivated, with no ideas coming. If you give me an assignment, I'll whip out an article for you. But if I sit down to write here, for myself, nothing comes.  

I've been reading +Jeff Goins You are a Writer (so start ACTING like one). It keeps pushing me to the keyboard at the most inopportune times; because the only time I have to read is when I'm on the treadmill finishing up my physical therapy workout for my leg. In the walk phases of interval training, his content is devoured. I look at the program workouts on the display screen, wishing they were keys instead and I could start writing right then. I promise myself I'll do it as soon as I get home. I'm on fire. 

Then I get home, walk in the door, and the fire flickers, dims, dies.

Articles keep popping up in newsletters from other writers hoping to inspire aspiring writers. (How's that for a jumbled sentence?) They have these themes: Keep your blog current! Be consistent! Just putting your fingers to the keys and free write.

I get really excited to do that. So I sit down, aaaaand... a big fat nothing. So underwhelming. Sorry. I wish I had something better for you there. 

Home is my office, it's where, on work days (which is every day), I work. Where I write, where I design, where I build, where I rove from a $35 kitchen table to a futon, then back to bed each day (except on the nights where I work so late I end up falling asleep on that futon). 

Life is so vastly different than it was before my knee injury -- which still isn't fixed, by the way. Thank you, American healthcare system. (Now there's a topic I could write about... but it's not fit for the blog.)

When I had no problems with mobility, when I could take off anywhere I wanted in my car, or trail run, or ski whatever looked good that day, there was never a problem with writer's block. I had plenty to discover, to try, to  move my brain in a new direction. The obstacle at that time was having the energy at the end of the day to actually write. 

Now my brain isn't taking in new sights, interactions, or physical challenges. I'm bored by what I can do, and frustrated by what I can't. Yup, I should be more grateful that I can do anything at all. (I am.) 

But dang it, I'm human, and with me comes human nature, and sometimes I give in. When I do, I think about how much better things used to be, how my career was stronger when I was at my peak physically, etc. And then I realize this lack of challenge looks like it directly corresponds with lack of creativity.

Oh, knee; why did I do this to you? Oh surgeons; couldn't you have just fixed it like you do for everyone else?

A change of scenery, new interactions with people, trying new things; all these things stirred my brain to get writing. That or the fact that I need to make a rent payment at the end of the month. But the latter isn't as, well, you know. Awesome. 

And usually I could have put that much better. But like I said, my brain isn't ready to write. 

Note: This was actually written May 24, 2015. I just didn't feel like it needed to be sitting on the front page for months, since that's about the rate that a new blog post gets published at this point in life.