Oh the hope of the blank page. It blinks before you, serene and white. Waiting to be covered with words. Oh the tyranny of the blank page. It hovers before you, bland and white. Demanding to be covered with words.
Oh the despair of the deadline. Never can your brain be so absolute empty and vacant as when you have a deadline.
Remember how when you were a kid, and you stood on the side of the swimming pool and the longer you looked at the water, the colder it got? You knew you must just jump right in and endure the quick flash of agony that was to come. Then, suddenly the water would be warm and you'd be having a great time, as long as some snapperdog didn't jump on your head? But despite knowing all this, still you just stood and stared and the water became like ice?
A blank page is just about the same. The more you stare at it, the blanker it gets, so blank that surely your pitiful little scratches could never make the slightest bit of impression. You know somewhere in your heart that if you just throw yourself at the blank page, it will give way, tear like tissue and you'll be on the other side, where the party is. But somehow the monolithic ominous blankness of the page keeps you rooted into place.
Which is a long elaborate way of saying that I am stuck in writer's block. With a deadline and no great ideas. And it's a sucky place to be: Blank Page Limbo.
The Biography of a Bouncing Boy Terror
The Birthday Girl, or Tiny Doom is Thirteen
Comestible Commissaries, or The Importance of Eating Earnest
Metal More Attractive, or A Young Man's Dilemma
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4 comments:
Writer, heal thyself! Chocolate is the key!!
Some ills, I fear even chocolate can not cure!
Then you have not tried enough chocolate!
I'm very sorry to hear this and hope the malady's of short duration. Is the problem lack of plot direction? Or is it lack of enthusiasm for what's already been plotted but not yet penned? To me these are separate but equally miserable limbos. I deal with the latter by writing the scenes anyway, any old which way (i.e., horribly), and by the time I'm done I'm unblocked and ready to backtrack and clean up the godawful mess. If your problem is you've run out of plot, maybe it's time for another stealie girl to pull out a gun? Isn't that what the writing gurus say: If you ever pull a gun in a scene, be sure to fire it? I know there are all kinds of strange and amusing things going on in Califa every waking moment. Maybe you could take us on a tour of a new neighborhood, introduce us to some new denizens. Speaking of denizens, what happens if one somehow becomes detached from a House? Could he take up residence south of the Slot? How come there are no female denizens (or are there)? Also, where did you come up with the "snapper" slang?
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