Writer's Block

I know, I have about four trips I have yet to blog about, and while I still fully intend to, I have decided to use this blog to accomplish two of its other intended purposes:

• To rant.


• To avoid doing what I should be doing, which, in this case, is writing THE PAPER OF MY LIFE.

The second is the subject of this post. I am about to begin taking my qualifying exams, after which I will be a Ph.D. candidate (assuming I pass). What am I now, you ask? I'm not really sure, which, I think, makes passing my qualifying exams that much more important.

These qualifying exams consist of two papers. In the first paper, I have to write about my theory of therapy. In other words, I have to talk about why I think therapy works. Which means I have to think therapy works. Which I do. Unfortunately, in the last two days, I have had 8 of 9 clients cancel or not show up. I think this is a personal record for me. For those of you questioning what kind of therapist I am, I would also like to mention that four of these clients are people I have never even met, so, hypothetically, these people haven't even had the opportunity to not like me yet. A snarky person who will remain nameless suggested that, perhaps, I am getting a reputation in the community. Anyway, this has created a paradox where I have time to write my paper, but nothing to write about. 

Instead, I have spent a lot of time online-looking at blogs, looking things up on Wikipedia, stalking people on Facebook, buying things I don't need, looking up summaries of old episodes of Gilmore Girls. In fact, as I have been writing this post, I have gotten distracted several times and looked up Faerie Tale Theater, Mark Harmon, and Cole Porter on Wikipedia, checked Facebook about seven times, Googled a recipe for Brazilian lemonade, and checked my Netflix queue. 

This is not to say that I have been wholly unproductive. I now have one journal article that has been published and one in submission, which will make my vita slightly less pathetic when I apply for jobs next year. I also did some laundry and unloaded from my dishwasher the dishes I did not LAST Sunday, but the Sunday before. And I ran two miles. These are all things I would feel very good about, if I didn't have this paper looming over my head. 

When I was about 10, I wanted to be a writer of fiction. I didn't aspire to Anna Karenina or Wuthering Heights, but I did have dreams about writing serials similar to The Babysitters' Club. Even now, I sometimes think about chucking the whole Ph.D. thing and writing a novel. The problem that I always run into when I start to write, whether it's a manuscript, a paper for class, or a story about a girl dating a hockey player, is writer's block. Or is it writers' block? Anyway, it is the reason I decided to become a therapist. But I didn't know that, in order to become a therapist, I had to become a graduate student first. Being a graduate student has involved lots of writing, and, consequently, lots of writer's block.

So, here I am, for the next month, on my couch, like I'm stranded on a deserted island with only my laptop and the remote control for my DVD player. If you don't see another post from me for a few weeks, you'll know I got over my writer's block. If you do, well, maybe I can do something else with these two years of Ph.D. level classes.