Just like the cause remains uncertain, the remedy remains a parody as well.

It’s been like a cycle. Open word document app- stare at blank word document – watch the cursor key blink- type a word- delete the word- close word document app- leave- take a walk- come back- open word document app- stare at blank page! I’ll tell you what; a menstrual cycle is still a lot more tolerable.

Over the past week I’ve been suffering from the writing disease; the mad cow disease would have served a better purpose at comparison with this case. What is the cause of this impediment still remains a mystery. It is said that a writer would just blank out and lose what to write, in most cases what to write comes to mind but translating it to a written form becomes a challenge. Speculations say that it is triggered mostly by negative actions or series of unfortunate events and how the disease is how the mind reacts to it.

Being the weird specie that I am, mine wasn’t triggered by circumstances or series of unfortunate events; mine was caused by a collision course caused by a thousand and one ideas running through my mind at the same time. Still don’t understand?

I’ll explain how.

I had some stories ideas to write, in fact, a lot. I was going to talk about ‘1004 problems with 1004’. The horrors of living in 1004, particularly my angst towards the extravagant extortions of money from inhabitant and yet not given the services in equality. I had an apartment to myself for a week while working on a project and honestly after the experience, I would rather have worked from home because the time I spent fetching water to fill the water drum in the bath, journeying from kitchen to toilet to do away with dirty water after doing the dishes because I dare not let the water out through the kitchen sink, having to wait for water to boil because the heater was there as an item of décor, and so on and so forth would discourage any prospective occupant.

Then I changed my mind and decided I was going to write about the psychology of sex. A lot of people might find this a bit controversial but as naïve as I am in the areas pertaining to sex; I believe your sexual activities and actions as well as desires have more to do with your temperaments and persona. Watch this space, might still enlighten you as to how this works.

And then I attended the solemnization of matrimony that is the wedding of Uche Eze to Bode Pedro and thought I should write about how I think I might have caught the wedding bug. It was my first ever wedding attended and I think I might soon start counting my 27 dresses from now on. And of course, I’ll add what really happened at the wedding that tabloids weren’t allowed to report on and my delight at the sheer realization of the fact that there is still a chance for me in this life when it comes to dancing at my wedding after witnessing Uche’s sober attempt at hers [being that I hate dancing].

Yes I had quite a lot to write and once I was told I was going to be a part of this month’s ‘30 days 30 voices’, it all came with a rush and I found myself all of a sudden, in a world filled with blank spaces and darkness, a wall had been built around my very mind shielding it from access.

But this supposed mad cow disease for writers didn’t just emerge with the inception of technology and its distractions, in the past, it was worse. Then using a typewriter, you could have typed almost half a page and if you lost insight, you would have start all over again.

Even in the latter days for most who like it the traditional way- putting pen to paper- turn their waste bins into dunking baskets with the little balls of paper, which is supposedly what they had tried to write, lying around.

Just like the cause remains uncertain, the remedy remains a parody as well. Most prolific writers that have suffered this disease would suggest a walk on the beach or a drive around town, or even jogging, cooking, seeing a movie, etc. anything that will take you off oblivion for a while.

Has that worked for me? You judge with this story. But to me, nah, I’m still staring into blank with this cold spaghetti Bolognese waiting to be devoured while my mind is waiting to be bailed out by another suggestion to eradicate what causes this diffusion for writers. My very disease- the Writers Block!

About the author: Ada Igboanugo is currently a writer at Thisday Newspapers.

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.