Writing through the brick wall

For the longest time, I thought I've lost my ability to write. I failed to be inspired anymore, and I've exhausted all my topics. What was once a creative furor for posts, dwindled down to an eventual nothing. I thought that was it. I had hit a brick wall, time to venture out and expand my horizons.

Then I realized, I was wrong. I was stuck, but it wasn't because I had run to the end of the line. I was stuck because I had hit a brick wall, made out of all the things that would stop a person from moving ahead. Parts of the wall was built by all the negative comments from others, a large part of it were self-induced, brick by brick, the 'I'm not good enough', or the 'This is crap' and the other whole lot demotivation acquired when I see other people moving ahead, and leaving me behind. But what I didn't realize, was there are always walls. While I was moving ahead, I was bound to hit something, but I only hit it because I was moving ahead.

I used to write big, flowery, ambiguous posts full of loaded words, and really pretentious sounding sentences that don't really mean anything. I thought that was what made a piece of writing great. Then I found that there's so much more to writing than that. One of the greatest skill lies in making the most impact with the least amount of words. There is beauty in the clear understated forms, the most concise structures, and the humblest of sentences.

Jim Collins put it this way:

" A great piece of art is composed not just of what is in the final piece, but equally what is not. it is the discipline to discard what does not fit- to cut out what might have cost days or even years of effort-that distinguishes the truly exceptional artist and marks the ideal piece of work, be it a novel, a symphony, a painting, a company, or most important of all, a life."

It wasn't that I had run out. Its just simply, a temporary road block. It was the first time I realized that this change in my writing, isn't something that is holding me back, or making me less, its me getting better. Because the greater half of the world isn't going to sit down and digest that 4,000 word story of your life. So what has to catch up to it, is my mind coming to terms with the new me. The better me. I'm better today, because I'm changing from artistic expression to communicating art. I'm putting into words what feelings are like. I'm delivering my thoughts in the best way possible, and I'm writing to others what mere speaking can't say.

I realized there can never be nothing to write about, because as long as you're still living, and life is still going on, there will be words- An endless stream of stories, conversations with people, wise words, the life and endless inspiration of real people lived. We live in exciting times, and it is not that I am not unable to move forward, I am moving forward.

I'm slowly tearing the bricks off one by one, and finally working my way through it, around it, upside down it.