Writer’s Block as Liminal Space
One of the gifts of age, for me, has been in becoming less didactic, more tolerant… and certainly less prescriptive. And thank goodness for that! But not so very long ago I was telling students, clients, and audiences alike that I didn’t believe in “writer’s block.” I (probably sneeringly) said that it’s what people use as an excuse to give up when the ideas or words won’t flow.
If I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that words like those come back to haunt you. Every. Single. Time.
And maybe we do use it as an excuse — but that doesn’t mean it’s any less real. Though I have a slightly different take than I used to on what it does and what it means.
In my novels and my poetry alike, I tend to come back over and over again to the theme of liminal spaces. (My own favorite author, Phil Rickman, uses the liminality inherent in borderlands, both physical and metaphysical, as plot devices and atmospheric backgrounds to great effect; I’m merely taking a page from his myriad books.)
These are spaces between the “what was” and the “what will be.” Liminality is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in some sort of middle stage. It is transitional and transformative; it halts you on the threshold and forces you to take stock, to take a breath, to take a chance.
