Wednesday, July 06, 2005

This is why writing sucks

I am brain dead. That's why I'm here. Any of you lucky people who are out there reading this, I apologize ahead of time and warn that this is my version of a rant, a bitch, a whine--call it whatever you like. If you want to skip over this, I don't blame you, because I wish I wasn't here, either. For almost an hour, I have been sitting in front of my laptop. DH has been with the kids (although I hear them in the other room). The big flashing cursor is on my blank Microsoft Word screen, keeping its own rhythm so well that I can just about hear it saying *blink* Fuck *blink* you! over and over again I haven't been able to write a coherent thought or sentence for any of my work. Characters are running around my brain in a friggin fictional free for all, but for some inexplicable reason, they won't come out to play on paper/word processor page. Maybe it's because they're my characters that they're being stubborn. I suppose all of an author's characters share a bit of her own personality flaws. Figures that I can't even escape bits and pieces of me in the people I create. All I want to do is write, and when I go to do it, I can't. A horrible position to be in. I won't call it writer's block, because it's not a lack of ideas that's gonna drive me to the looney bin. Instead, I think it's too many crowding up the grey matter cells I have left. Jon, ever the practical engineer, says, "Just pick one idea and go with that. Just write about that." I know he's right, but I can't get my thoughts and fingers to cooperate. So, I sit here and bitch instead, hoping that maybe typing something--anything--will help me get on the right track. Right now, I'm going to say, "Fuck you, cursor--I'm trying again" and am off to try to get something down before I turn in for the night.

2 comments:

John Holland said...

I understand completely. It's not a lack of ideas that stops me from writing, I have a thousand ideas and characters, I keep coming up with them, but when I sit down to write nothing comes out. It can be very very frustrating.

Jon Mark said...

victor hugo had an easy solution--he wrote a 1500 page novel. then you can talk about everything.