I have had writer’s block for over a year. I just didn’t know what to write, nor could I figure out where to start when ideas did come to me, let alone which idea to follow.

I spent 4 months in the hospital last year, but for the last 21 months, since COVID kicked my Scleroderma and Behçet’s Disease up several notches, I have really not been well. Sure, I have had days of great energy, driven by my natural adrenalin and my personality, which can override days of bad health. However, my body has been uncomfortable all the time. It still is. It has become my norm, but it can be all-consuming. So, needless to say, my illnesses take up a lot of time – taking medications at the correct hour each day; monitoring what my GI tract is doing at every moment so I know which days I have to take those medications; moving through the pain every morning I get up until I get used to it and no longer feel it so badly; figuring out if I can get to sleep at night without pain pills (I save them for truly special pain!); respecting when my body simply cannot go on without me taking a rest in the afternoon or getting into bed by six in the evening; nourishing my body with enough food so that I can function while being careful not to eat something that is going to make my GI tract go bonkers; and so on. No wonder I have not been able to write!

Now, it’s not like I have been unmotivated in other areas – quite the opposite actually. I am active when it comes to helping with fundraisers and projects at my children’s school and I teach cyber safety to the students, so that’s taken up some of my time, but I am a doer and a thinker and a writer, and I need all those cups to be overflowing for me to feel fulfilled. The writing is fundamental to who I am.

I needed something to generate my creative juices. I read a lot, but this has still not been motivating me to write. I started to do some research online a couple months ago – looking perhaps for a writing course to do, but the truth is, I don’t need other people around me to motivate me to write. What I need is something to stimulate me to write. I go to therapy once a week – I am all talked out of my emotions, so I don’t really want to write about them as well. Anyway, I came across an acting class at Edna Manley College’s School of Continuing Education and Allied Programmes. Instinctively I felt this was the right course for me to do.

I did drama as a hobby at school, taking Speech & Drama exams all the way up to Guildhall Grade 8 Level, scoring distinctions in all. I enjoyed playing lead parts in Frederico Garcia Lorca’s ‘Bodas de Sangre’ and Noel Coward’s ‘Private Lives’, and smaller parts playing a horse in Peter Shaffer’s ‘Equus’ and other school productions. I then went on to take a course at the Central School of Speech and Drama while I was completing my Bachelor’s at LSE. I never pursued my mini passion for acting beyond this because it was not something I dreamed of doing as a career. When I was a little girl, I did want to be an actress, but when I announced this to my parents, my dad told me it was a hard life and he asked me who did I think would look after me. To which my youngest brother, who is two years my senior, replied, “I will look after you, Ems.” What a sweetie, right! Alas, other passions took over and I pursued those.

Coming back to the present day, my first acting class at Edna Manley College took place last Wednesday evening. Well, that was all it took for me to overcome my block and here I am, after more than a year since writing my last blog – I have blocked writer’s block.