{"id":141605,"date":"2020-01-01T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2020-01-01T14:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=141605"},"modified":"2019-12-17T12:54:30","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T17:54:30","slug":"tove-jansson-on-writers-block-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/01\/01\/tove-jansson-on-writers-block-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Tove Jansson on Writer\u2019s Block"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re away until January 6, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2019. Enjoy your holiday!<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Tove Jansson<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019m sitting comfortably parked on a bench in a little park behind Saint-Sulpice and I\u2019m supposed to find something to write about. It\u2019s very quiet here. Pigeons copulate on a patch of grass, some tourists catch their breath on the benches across from me, an organ plays behind my back, far away.<\/p>\n

A clochard comes every now and then and bothers the tourists\u2014he explains, at length, that he also understands Italian. I just keep quiet, and eventually he goes away.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t comprehend why this has to be so hard; one should be able to write just about anything at any time, in a purely professional way.<\/p>\n

(I wonder how it is for other people.)<\/p>\n

For the time being I have only written the date on the first page of my notepad but that was yesterday.<\/p>\n

Read more >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written toward the end of Jansson\u2019s life, \u201cOnce, at a park,\u201d starts out as a classic piece on writer\u2019s block\u2014but there is much more going on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1693,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60329],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2019"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTove Jansson on Writer\u2019s Block by Tove Jansson<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Written toward the end of Jansson\u2019s life, \u201cOnce, at a park,\u201d starts out as a classic piece on writer\u2019s block\u2014but there is much more going on.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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