I’d like to believe that there is no such thing as “writer’s block.” I could write for days about topics that I care about. Would they all be good, or deemed “worthy” in my eyes? Probably not.  If someone were to ask you to create a list about topics you wished to write about, whether it’s to explore an area of personal interest or something you simply care about, I’m pretty sure that your list would be long, or at least more than bullet point—I know mine is. To that end, I like to think of an obstacle (or obstacles) in the writing process, or a subject that is difficult to put in the right words, as a “writer’s frustration.” (Clever, isn’t it?) I went through a period of this frustration at some point towards the end of February and a little bit into the first few weeks of March, and I can tell you now that there were some moments in which things didn’t look too pretty.

All of the writing that is simply not worthy enough for me.

I am person of paper—I carry a poetry journal, but I also like to write my first drafts of poems on a large notepad a couple of times before I transfer them over to a Word document. It’s a process that has worked for me most of the time, without much disruption. Things changed this past month: I find myself wasting about three or five sheets of notepad paper before coming up with a poem that I truly enjoy.

Because of this, I decide to do things outside of my ordinary writing process—at home of course—to see if there was anything to could be done to end my frustration, and I discovered some very interesting results.

First, I decided to let my notepad feel my rage—and no, I did not punch it or beat it. Instead, I decided to scribble on it with one of my Expo markers for about a minute and half, just to see if anything would occur that could possibly ease my frustration.

Did I just create abstract art?

It kind of worked, but also didn’t work. I felt a bit of relief; I felt some of the tension lift away. But not all of it went away—I still found myself not liking what my brain was producing.

After that, I tried to make a compilation poem by taking really random words and lines that I have written in my journal, or from the note sections of my iPhone. This resulted in some weird-sounding stanzas and phrasing that I wasn’t happy with.

Still trying to figure out how to make this poem work.

My last method was probably the most orthodox and logical: I turned off my brain and decided to look through some of my old poetry books, which carried a significant influence over my work this past year. I found this to be the most useful method, even though I am not entirely sure if it was because I turned off my brain, or I remembered where my writing comes from, or if it was all just coincidence.

The poetry books I find myself returning to, again and again.

Perhaps there is no cure for writer’s frustration, and the only thing one can do is to kept pushing through it…