Writer's Block

If I stretch the description of my secret ambition, I would say that I aspire to be a writer! I have always wanted to be one, though, clearly, that 'want' has fallen well short of the point where serious effort can begin. When I visit the blogosphere, I see that there are many people who write with apparent ease and felicity! Some have interesting stuff to peddle but others are happily strewing the scene with the mundane and yet coming up with readable pieces. The amount of work that appears each day fills me up with amazement and considerable envy. Why can't I roll off words to describe my daily life and attract readers? Is that so because my routine is, well, very routine? So is it for the others! Am I then the chosen one who has a congenital and persistent case of Writer's Block? Or could it be that I am intending and thinking about writing rather than doing the actual writing? I suspect that even my vote will go for the latter. Two of my friends have ascribed their writing to a motivation from within or above. They don't struggle when the urge comes calling. Clearly, I am not in that orbit. A few months ago I read parts of a series of interviews on the Guardian online. Accomplished writers were presented with questions on their approach to the art and craft of writing. On the question of how to get inspiration to write, there was unanimity; there is seldom a flash from above. One simply has to sit down - preferably at the same time each day - and dig the elbows into the desk and force the words onto the page. Or the screen. That is the mantra, they said. The only one.