Faith Block

A lot of people have been writing about writer's block recently - but I've had another problem.

Faith block.

No, it's not that I've started to doubt God's existence.

I've started to doubt my own.

I was writing hard, and working hard, up until very recently - and then hit a wall. It wasn't that I couldn't write, or couldn't think of what to write.

It was just that what I was writing did not seem worth saying, or it didn't feel like I had the right be be saying it. Either crass or presumptuous, and I started avoiding the computer.

And I've been avoiding conversations, even with my wife. I just don't seem to have anything worth saying - she does, and I listen.

(To be fair - this has been happening during a time of illness, and withdrawal from pain medication that no longer helped control a situation that has been a bit challenging. But that is not an excuse.)

I'm not sure how to get through this. Some possibilities suggest themselves -

1. Keep writing regardless - it is the advice I 'give' to people with writer's block
2. Stop writing for awhile, and do something else.
3. Stop writing indefinitely. Maybe it really is time to quit.

The first is probably the best - it's the most disciplined, and the hardest to accomplish (for me). The second - well, it's easy to get into a situation where tomorrow never comes.

And the third is tempting. But the problem is systemic (witness the lack of desire to communicate verbally), and pulling back can lead to a sort of isolation that I don't believe we, as humans, were meant to explore.

Has anyone else faced this? What did you do?