Yearly Update? I hope not!

Apparently it's time to give you my yearly update and what a year its been.  Seriously, 2011 might be remembered as one of THE most important and transformative years of my life.  No joke!  I would have loved to tell you about it along the way, but I've diagnosed myself as having something they call "writers block."

The most reliable source on the internet, 'Wikipedia' defines writers block as:

A condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked" writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers.

Looking back, I would definitely say that I would fall into the later category.  I had been a regular blogger on xanga even before I migrated over to blogger.  Once I came over to blogger, I felt a great surge of creativity and really pumped things out over the course of 2008.  However by the time 2009 came, I was done.  Finished!  I had nothing left.  Every time I sat down to type, nothing came out.  I was effectively blocked up.

I have some of my own theories as to why it hit me so hard, but Wikipedia also lists some causes of this condition:  

Other blocks, especially the more serious kind, may be produced by:

• adverse circumstances in a writer's life or career
• physical illness
• depression
• the end of a relationship
• financial pressures
• a sense of failure.

So I think it will be a helpful exercise for me to examine these.  I can say that all of these hit me on some level over the course of 2008-2009 and I'm hoping that sitting down and writing about them might help break these chains that bind me.