Dickens Hit Writer’s Blocks Too

Dickens Hit Writer’s Blocks Too

We can hardly claim Charles Dickens as a Southern California writer, but CWC South will have a booth at the Riverside Dickens Festival in February and anyway, Dickens and the just-passed yuletide season go inseparably hand-in-hand. In homage to his many contributions to how we think about the holidays, we pause to reflect that even A Christmas Carol’s author faced mighty writer’s blocks on occasion.

In February 1856, struggling to finish Little Dorrit, he penned a letter to Angela Burdett-Coutts. Having gotten as far as part six, he lost steam. He described himself as “Prowling about the rooms, sitting down, getting up, stirring the fire, looking out of [the] window, tearing my hair, sitting down to write, writing nothing, writing something and tearing it up, going out, coming in, a Monster to my family, a dread Phenomenon to myself.”

Yet three weeks later, he met his deadline. So, writers, take heart from the master – along with a few more words of useful advice.

“Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!”

“An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.”

“The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.” [Ed. Note: Like that novel you keep wanting to start].

And  —

”I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time.”

A final 2020 Ed. Note: Do you feel a New Year’s Resolution coming on?