Writer's Constipation

Writer’s block is like bowel constipation! You KNOW you need to go. You KNOW you want to go. But you can’t go. It builds up and builds up, until you want to explode, or die, or FLUSH yourself. It’s painful, it’s exhausting, it’s frustrating. Below are a few similarities between bowel constipation and writer’s constipation (err, I mean block):

1. You can’t go. Either way, you need to go. It’s like there's something inside, burning, hurting, PLEADING to get out. Something that NEEDS to get out for you to survive. If it can’t get out you will die of autointoxication (from being blocked up).
2. You want to go. You want to release the shit from inside (I mean the thoughts, the creativity from your mind). When you’re constipated, you feel the need to go. You push and push, and NOTHING comes out. It hurts, you’re disappointed, you NEED to go. You pray, “God let the shit come out of my ass, err, I mean the thoughts/creativity come out of my mind”…"it hurts so bad. Pleeease.” As a writer, when you can’t write, little thoughts come to your mind, little pebbles of shit. You poop them out through your pen, pushing them onto the page, but it’s NOT enough. It still hurts.
3. You try ANYTHING to go. This includes asking for advice. In the case of the constipation, it’s a doctor. In the case of writing, it’s a writing teacher. The doctor/teacher tells you that EVENTUALLY you will go. Little help that is!
4. You’re open to ANY suggestion. Anything that will relieve the pain. You’re even open to your teacher’s/doctor’s smug suggestion to, “Just go (err, I mean ‘write’).” Unhelpful, when you just can NOT write (err, I mean, “go”). You push and push and viola, you shit—but all that comes out are little pebbles, bird-like, rabbit-like. VERY disappointing. VERY unfulfilling. You may coin a phrase or come up with two words that sound WONDERFUL together—but you still can’t shit a paragraph.
5. You try SELF-MEDCIATION. You try suppositories (while sticking something up your ass maybe fun for SOME people, when you’re blocked up, it just HURTS). You try sticking stuff into your brain—new materials—by reading and reading—but you just realize the quality of the other person’s work—PLUS they obviously didn’t have writer’s block when they wrote it. “Why me?” you think. “Why can’t I shit like that…ANYMORE?” Other people’s material JUST blocks you up more.
6. Desperate, you try fiber to remove the blockage. You miss what you don’t have. It’s like seeing a dump when you’re constipated—you think, “Oh, how I miss being regular.” Or you see Mr. Hankie the Christmas Poo on South Park and wish he were YOUR good buddy! You revisit the stuff that kept you regular before, you’re old articles thinking, “Oh, how I miss being regular.” It felt so good to write EVERY day.

All in all—in both cases—NOTHING helps to relieve your suffering. NOTHING unblocks you. You JUST can’t go. You JUST can’t write. Either way, you’re LUCKY if you get pebbles of shit to come out.

As time goes by, you start to go. But it’s very little. It hurts less. You can shit. You can write. But it’s still NOT right. It’s still going to take some time to write shit normally.

After weeks, months, years, decades ( in some cases) you can go. Well, the months, years and decades are ONLY for writer’s constipation. If only, as is the case of bowel constipation, writers could use an enema—they’d feel okay, sooner. Unfortunately, brain/creativity/writing enemas do NOT exist. Yet. Of course, once you start going regularly, you run the risk of getting a different malady, writer's diarrhea. I've suffered from this a few times myself!