Teresa, for clarification: I did state that, if you're going through a particularly rough period, working on fiction might not be a good idea, but to turn to writing in a journal, or possibly working on a nonfiction article, or even just doing research and scribbling down notes on what you read with that, and the thoughts that come to you -- anything to keep the writing going, at least a little bit. It's not necessary that it be polished writing, but something to keep exercising those muscles, so to speak. It's not a matter of "tricking" yourself, or any of that; simply of keeping the mind as limber as possible. This can include writing letters to people, as well.
Oh, but JD, I've been through periods where I had to struggle to write anything more complex than a grocery list. Letters to friends? Out of the question. Nonfiction? A journal? Not possible. There have been days when a paragraph like this one would take more than an hour to compose -- and worse days when I didn't post at all although I had something to say, because the words wouldn't come. So I stand by what I said before. With the worst kind of block you can't cure it by trying to write, or by writing something else. You have to fix the underlying problem(s).
Right now, I'm on no less than three different antidepressants, and because of them I'm finding I do have a free flow of words, here at least, when I have something particular to say. Fiction remains a struggle. For me, fiction and nonfiction come from two different parts of my brain, and the creative part is in serious trouble of late.
But of course it depends on what you hope for in your writing. For those who write for distraction or escape, I am sure writing during a depression is possible. If you are striving for excellence (as I know you are, even as I am) then even the inability to tell good writing from bad can bring things to a crashing halt. Mistakes snowball. If you can fix them early enough you can avoid an avalanche. If every passage looks like garbage, then it's impossible to identify the real mistakes.
Sometimes writing something, anything, does work. I have said as much. But in those cases it's just a matter of priming the pump. This does no good at all if there is no water in the cistern. You can work the handle until your arm falls off, the water isn't there. Meanwhile, you're courting dehydration by all that exertion. Better to find out
why the cistern is empty.
I'm sure your own struggles have been intense, but that doesn't necessarily give you insight into what mine have been and are -- any more than mine give me the right to tell you what you are feeling and what you should do about them. I might make
suggestions, but I am sure you will have the good sense to ignore them when they are completely off-base in your particular circumstances. The problem is that people who are newer to these things than either of us may take something to heart when they shouldn't. They'll try something that people present as though it's the universal cure, and when it doesn't work stress mounts and the problem may become worse.
My point -- and really my only point -- is that when one highly touted cure doesn't work people shouldn't feel they need to stay with it. They would do far better under those circumstances to look elsewhere -- and very often for a solution that is very
much elsewhere. If your brain is dull because you're anemic, for instance, there is no possible way that any form of writing is going to cure that. Two weeks of spinach salads will do you a lot more good.
