Dear Writer,
Have you ever heard of the yips? It’s a condition that happens in golfers, giving them involuntary wrist spasms that interrupt their game. But, for a while there, no one knew what it was, and it was thought to be psychological at first. All in the golfer’s head.
Now, the condition for golfers has been determined to have a neurological origin, but the yips has gained steam in general pop psychology as a sudden inability to do something you used to do so naturally, you didn’t ever have to think about it. It got a foothold in sports, happening when an athlete chokes. A pitcher who suddenly can’t throw the ball accurately in the playoffs; a basketball player who can’t hit the game-winning basket after being fouled.
The yips.
In writing, of course, we call that writer’s block. I hate that term. Writer’s block puts the fault at the feet of the writer.
You’re just not trying hard enough. Push through. Just do it. Just write. Jeez, how hard can it be?
It’s just typing, after all.
I identify with the yips. It’s like the muscle memory of my writing has just kind of stopped working automatically the way it used to. Is it a lack of confidence? A fear of expectation? Am I experiencing involuntary writer spasms? Who knows?
The yips surrender to mystery. We don’t know how they start, or why they stop. But we know that they are real, and that eventually, usually, they pass. The answer is not writing harder, however.
The answer, I think, is joy.
Everything,
L