CURIOUS THINGS is the column from Donnybrook-Bridgetown Mail journalist Nina Smith.
Nina has been a journalist for six years in the apple town of Donnybrook.
Outside of work her obsessions are writing novels, creating costumes, belly dancing and seeking out the weird, the strange and the curious as inspiration for stories.
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For a writer, having writer’s block is akin to beating a hole into the nearest wall with your head because your brains have turned to concrete.
I’m a writer. I’ve written a whole pile of novels over the years and recently even published three of them.
I love writing. When I sit down at my computer to work on a novel, I can forget the mundane world completely and construct a whole other place and time.
I can explore different worlds and different time periods; and I can create characters that I would be terrified to meet in real life, but that are fun in fiction, like my ancient sorcerer who always looks like he’s smelling something bad and my personal favourite character, a giant spider called Fluffy Ducky.
He’s old and has rheumatism now, but he was a real go-getting vampire-eating bundle of cuddles in his youth.
Unless of course the dreaded writer’s block hits. No giant eight-legged bundles of cuddles then.
Writer’s block brings other things. Coffee. Procrastination. Sometimes some unladylike language interspersed with overenthusiastic repetition of the word `stupid’, and always a lot of glaring at a blank computer screen waiting for the words to come.
Luckily, it doesn’t happen for me often with fiction. It does, however, hit a bit more frequently when I’m called on to write an opinion piece like this one.
I’ve no idea why this is. I’m a very opinionated person. I’ll freely give most people some very fiery opinions on the environment, big business or any other contentious topic you choose, and if it’s politics we’re talking, you might hear some of that unladylike language.
Some days, however, I just can’t sit down and channel it. Maybe because I’ve spent too much time talking about things and I’m sick of the topic. Or maybe it’s because it’s much easier to channel all those fiery emotions into made up worlds.
Seriously, I can write an 80,000 word novel about a girl who sees ghosts and has to outwit a serial killer in six to eight weeks, but 800 words on the repeal of the carbon tax?
Forget it. At least, forget it today.
On a day without writer’s block, I’ll let you have it.
