For most of the past week, I have been stuck at home, courtesy of a big
arthritis flare-up in my right knee that turned me into a temporary
cripple. A great chance to sit down and
write, right?
It would be if I knew what to write about and how to write it. But I don’t.
I have a disease called Writer’s Block.
It attacks the brain cells. The
patient becomes terminally bored with every single possible topic and unable to
come up with an opening sentence. As the
disease progresses, the brain becomes more and more paralyzed, until all the
patient can do is try to hold a ballpoint pen with his nose and toss crumpled
paper at the cat.
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| Two Writers |
The only thing I have written all week is this thing..
Words come and go, in no particular order. Amanuensis. I haven’t thought of that word in months! Serial.
Horticulture. Hairy. Hairy
horticulture. Meravigliosa. Voleva una vita meravigliosa! Sheeeeesh!
I can put together a halfway decent opening sentence in Italian, but not
in English! What’s wrong with me?
I need a subject. What do they
always say? “Write what you know.” I can’t do that. My life is boring, even to me, and I’m the
one living it.
I could make stuff up and write a fantasy. I did that recently, and got more hits on
that short-short story than on any of my others. On the other hand, that story wasn’t
completely made up, because I was envisioning my own apartment, I made myself
the narrator and I used an old legend that I had already read about. In other words, I took elements of my life
and exaggerated them to the point where they were unrecognizable as anything human. If I keep doing that, people will think I’m
batshit crazy.
Actually, I am batshit crazy.
That’s why I became a writer. It
shouldn’t matter if people think I am batshit crazy when I AM batshit crazy,
because something like that is bound to show, anyway, right?
I know. I’ll write something
about what it’s like to have Writer’s Block!
Problem solved.
