The curse that is writer's block...

I've been writing stories since elementary school. I think it may have all started the year Mrs. Anderson had each of us in her second grade class write letters and stories to and for the class' mascot, Paddington Bear. It was one of my favorite things about her class. I still remember the week it was my turn. It was the week my family traveled to Florida to visit my grandparents. I described everything in painstaking detail for Paddington and embellished quite a bit along the way. Then, when I was in the 7th grader my english teacher, Mr. Swann from Melbourne, Australia, encouraged my writing more than any other teacher I'd ever had. He encouraged my imagination and my love for painting pictures with words. I was hooked. And I suppose that my natural inclination towards anything containing the written word helped as well. I consume books...always have. I love crossword puzzles, word jumbles, Yahoo's Twist Text. I love words.

I wrote and was an editor for my high school newspaper. I majored in Broadcast Journalism and wrote for Phoenix's Fox station for a time. I wrote for a Christian newspaper for over a year. And for the last 10 years I have wanted to write a novel. It's there. It's inside me. I just can't seem to find it.

Sometimes I feel like it's so close to the surface only to have it skirt away from me as if it's a mirage in a barren desert. Sometimes I hear the conversations between characters inside me, but once I begin to write they cease. It's there. I know it is. I just can't seem to overcome this writers block that has plagued me for too many years. I want to find my story.  I want to find my voice as an author. What do I have to say? Who is it that I want to create? I hate writers block!

I've never been as disciplined as other writers. I don't sit down and do character sketches. I don't do plot charts and figure out where my story is headed before I sit down to write. Rather, I've always just sat down and began to write, letting the words pour forth and my fingers move over the keyboard until words appear on a screen. Perhaps this is my mistake. Maybe I need more discipline.