Writer's Block

Creative writing is hard work. I have always admired the people who have written such wonderfully engrossing books and often wondered how much time, effort, patience, perseverance and clarity of thought would it have required to come up with a good literary piece.
Scientific writing is no piece of cake either...I have come to realize that lately while working on an assignment. There are times when you simply lose the enthusiasm to write even a word. Sitting in front of the computer staring at the screen, idly browsing the internet, I came across a website which listed several quotes from writers and thinkers of every type: journalists, novelists, poets, philosophers (here). There are some which are really worth pondering over and I believe....whenever you lose the enthusiasm to write and whether or not there's a deadline to meet....read this and get back your groove :)

"I believe that the so-called “writing block” is a product of some kind of disproportion between your standards and your performance… One should lower his standards until there is no felt threshold to go over in writing. It’s easy to write. You just shouldn’t have standards that inhibit you from writing… I can imagine a person beginning to feel he’s not able to write up to that standard he imagines the world has set for him. But to me that’s surrealistic. The only standard I can rationally have is the standard I’m meeting right now… You should be more willing to forgive yourself. It doesn’t make any difference if you are good or bad today. The assessment of the product is something that happens after you’ve done it."

"Stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position."

I think I am ready to stop pretending to work while roaming aimlessly on the web and get back to my writing.