Writer's Dread

I’ve gone through periods of not writing anything, but I’ve never felt blocked. I think it’s just a lazy-thinking kind of cliché, this idea of writer’s block. In a very obviously lavatorial way, it suggests that you’ve got something in you and you can’t get it out because of the blockage. So you’re straining away, and then it becomes more and more blocked. Whereas I’ve gone through phases where I just haven’t had anything to say. That’s made life a bit boring because, well, I’ve always had plenty of time, and without writing the days are pretty long—though as you get older they speed past pretty quickly anyway. And I’ve gone through phases where I’ve dreaded the idea of writing. Writer’s dread. Now there’s a subject for an essay—if one could face writing it. Another thing I am persuaded of is that I’ll run out of fiction to write long before I give up writing the other stuff—even though that means we’ve come full circle and I am now admitting a distinction I began by denying. Maybe we should start over?

GEOFF DYER