Trying For Unstuck

My writing had been going so well until losing Moe. For the past several weeks I'd been making progress on the second draft of my novel, putting in 20-30 hours a week before everything crumbled around me. And now, there's nothing. The only thing I can seem to string together are old stories about time spent with my old guy. It feels like there is a dam in place somewhere deep inside of me that isn't letting anything flow unless it's about him. And it's not for lack of trying. Yesterday I sat with my latest chapter staring me in the face and I managed to add only a few sentences in as many hours. It's frustrating. Yes, I want to write about Moe and all of these things we experienced together, but I also want to finish this draft.

A search on "grieving and writer's block" led me to this article. In the article, there was a specific quote that really resonated with me.

Considering that a writer's creativity is part of their psychological identity, it is not surprising that what affects people as individuals, also affects them as writers.

The part of me that allows me to weave tales is the part of me that is also still so much in shock with every emotion under the sun. I also read another bit in this article that makes me realize that maybe I'm in some kind of purgatory.

Writers hurt when they can’t write. They may not realize it, but their behavior speaks volumes. Often, writers will go through a series of stages before they are ready to write again and these stages are similar to the Kübler-Ross stages of grief in psychology. In other words, when writers can’t write they grieve, so it makes sense that the stages of writer’s block would parallel the stages of grief.

I am a writer; whether you consider me one or not is of no consequence to me. I know what I am, and the above quote is revealing itself to be true. It's painful not to write when you know it's one of the reasons you're here.

So if you wonder why I can't "get over it already", first of all, you don't "get it" at all. But also, I am determined to keep the words from petrifying within me and taking away my other great passion. The loss of two loves within the same week is surely more than I want to deal with now.