The Dead Marshes Effect in Writing

It is different from being stuck. When you are stuck you have some (hundred) cups of tea/watch an episode of Sex&the City/do your nails […] but eventually you start writing. Your idea is temporarily roaming in your mind, not willing to lie down in a logic position that would allow you to capture it with your pen (or keyboard).  This is so common that it is taught during Journalism classes at University.

The Dead Marshes Effect is a different way of being stuck, more dangerous, overwhelming and disturbing.  If you open The Lord of the Rings you will find a description of this cosy place located in lovely Mordor:

“Cold, clammy winter still held sway in this forsaken country. The only green was the scum of livid weed on the dark greasy surfaces of the sullen waters. Dead grasses and rotting reeds loomed up in the mists like ragged shadows of long forgotten summers."

Nobody would like to be stuck in a similar place, not even Dracula.

Kind Gollum led Frodo and Sam here on their way to destroy the Ring and accidentally forgot to mention the candle lights floating on the pool surface. They are a sort of Sirens’ song that attracts visitors towards the corpses luring under the water, with the purpose to make them fall, sink and die. Tolkien didn’t make things easy for Frodo.

For a writer being stuck in the Dead Marshes means that he not only has no clue about what will appear on that damn white page, he is not even certain he can see it through. He is not sure his Muse still loves him; he is not sure he should be doing that; he is mesmerized by the light coming from the computer screen and forgets he is a writer at all.

As if you could. Juvenal wrote that “many suffer from the incurable disease of writing, and it becomes chronic in their sick minds” and the Romans were very wise some 2000 years ago. This illness is much more powerful than any deadly light, swamp or supernatural creature whatsoever.

If you find yourself in the Dead Marshes, don’t look at the candle lights and follow Sam. It will take a bit more than having a cup of tea, but if you love writing, you will sort it out in the end. It is the only case outside Disney movies in which love will save you. There are already too many books around, but someone might be just waiting to read yours.