Thursday, September 24, 2015

64. Blogger's block

A couple of false starts and I still couldn't get a paragraph done. It was probably because of the rugged schedule yesterday, which had me occupied by hearings for an entire day and the preparations for another trip to Davao today. This is not my first encounter with presumably a writer's block, but this is the first time I am addressing it directly by writing about it. In the past sixty three days, I have only skipped a paragraph once, due to unusually heavy workload; I feel though it was not about an inability to  write, but more of the scarcity of time to get it done. Yesterday, however, was a different case. I was shuttling between two hearings at high noon in EDSA from Quezon City to Pasay. And to relieve myself of the stressful condition of being in heavy traffic while time is ticking before the next hearing started, I tried to write a couple of lines, but there was no paragraph to be had. The same was true in the evening even as the hearings have finished.  I am reminded of Kobe Bryant's high school coach who taught him of the need to have a bread and butter shot. It's the high accuracy and all weather shot that he could make if necessary when a shot couldn't be sourced from anywhere. Kobe Bryant, whose phenomenal career as a basketball player is legendary, can make shot at will, even at the worse game situations. I watched him make two free throws shortly after his Achilles' heel popped out.  How that relates to writing the paragraph is likened to a bread and butter piece of writing -- it has to be a topic that I should be able to write about confidently and with undying inspiration, if the need arises. And the bread and butter paragraph should be the answer to the impending writer's block -- the one that I could still write even as my Achilles's heel has popped-out, so to speak.  It should be the topic of paragraph 65. 

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