It Might Be a Myth, but the Boogie Man Is Standing Over Me
My latest battle with “writer’s block”
I’ve struggled with writing this past month. Every day the same thought: I need to write something for Medium. But no matter how much I wrote in my journal, I couldn’t get anything to gel. As the hours ticked off into days and days rolled into weeks, my writing angst deepened.
Like many on Medium, I dislike the term “writer’s block.” What does it even mean? Christina Ward calls it “a big fat myth…the writer’s Boogie Man.”
But what if I’m scared of the Boogie Man? When he comes to visit, he terrorizes not just my creative writing but my ability to compose even the simplest of emails. It takes minutes to draft something I should have dashed off in a few seconds. The doubt over every word is paralyzing.
It’s not the first time I’ve been here. Being paralyzed by my own self-doubts is a routine I know well. Every time it strikes, I tell myself I’m not aiming for perfection. But my subconscious doesn’t care; it will find a way to open the door to the Boogie Man.
In the music video for Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in The Wall, Part Two, an animated scene shows a tiny human figure huddled next to a wall of white bricks stretching up to the night sky. The wall wraps around the figure and…
