Do you believe in writer’s block? I don’t know whether or not Miss Mawer believed in it, but she did believe that emotions can block creativity.
Writers block is one of those nebulous, difficult to define things. Does it even really exist? Certainly, during this last summer, I was unable to write. But it was not writer’s block.
To me, writers block would be when I couldn’t think of anything to write. However, during that summer, I couldn’t write, because I couldn’t concentrate, and that was because there were unpleasant and difficult things going on in my life.
It was more of a creator’s block, than a writer’s block.
Miss Mawer understood this difference. Under normal circumstances she was perfectly capable of acting out a huge range of emotions when she was on stage. However, the emotional impact of losing her husband in the First World War caused a blockage of emotions. Not writer’s block, but, I suppose, actor’s block. Miss Mawer, for a period, was unable to express deep emotions on stage. I don’t know how long this blockage lasted, and it disappeared of its own accord. But she never forgot it, and once spoke about it many years later, interestingly, during the Second World War.
Often, when we are grieving, we can still perform those daily tasks that need to be done, even if we are just going through the motions. We can even return to work – depending on what type of job it is. I was able to return to work after the death of my parents, but I was sitting at my desk in body, not in mind. I was performing my job correctly, but mechanically, without emotion.
I was listening to a podcast yesterday, which gave me the idea for this blog post. Joanna Penn (the host), was discussing this subject with Becca Syme (author and coach). Becca talked about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, where (often) we need to deal with problems somewhere else on the scale, before we can be creative:
“Creativity can just go away because, again, it’s Maslow’s hierarchy, right?
I know it’s not 100% one layer at a time all the time, but if your base level foundation is being attacked, if you don’t know for sure how you’re going to make your mortgage next month, it’s going to be real hard to reach creative freedom if you’re worried about stuff.”Becca Syme.
The discussion was a comparison of burnout versus blockage, and I think Miss Mawer would have agreed that the two are completely different. In the summer, when I was having difficulties with writing, I wasn’t suffering from burn out, and when Miss Mawer was unable to express full emotions on stage, she wasn’t burned out, either. We were both suffering an emotional blockage which prevented us from being creative. Miss Mawer used this instance of blockage as an example to teach her students about how a terrible trauma can have an adverse effect on creativity.
Here is the link to the podcast https://pca.st/episode/24d51010-ee1a-43cb-b4a3-a937a19adc89