If you dread the thought of writing, if you fear your desk, and if you hate your computer, then you are trying too hard.

If the thought of writing makes you feel guilty, makes your heartbeat quicker, and makes you sweat, then you are trying too hard. Your writing has become a burden that inhibits your creativity, your thinking, and your production. This, of course, leads to writer's block, the scourge of all writers.

If you avoid your desk-or table, or any other place that you write-you are building up your torture rather and ameliorating it, which is another indication that you are trying too hard.

If you hate your computer or your typewriter (if you are still using one), it becomes and evil entity that overpowers you and renders you useless as a writer. You are trying too hard.

You are trying too hard when you become obsessed with your inability to produce. When the current project becomes an ordeal, you are trying too hard. Then it is time to set that undertaking aside and start another. No, it is not time to take a rest, to procrastinate, and to stop writing; it is time to read, to plan a new undertaking-a new poem, a new story, a new article, etc.-to give your mind a rest from the overwhelming present piece, to enjoy a new perspective, and to relax your stifled creativity, but do not quit writing.

Charles O. Goulet has a BA in history and BEd in English literature. He has several historical novels published that are available through Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Barnes and Noble, and other bookstores

Charles O. Goulet
RR 1
Evansburg, AB
T0E 0T0
go1c@telusplanet.net