~Writer’s Block~
By WordWulf, 23rd Feb 2011 | Follow this author
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Posted in WikinutWritingTips
~You don’t know what you’ll do when the shithouse burns down ‘til the flames hit you in the ass~lonely dreams~dark rooms~solitary confinement~waiting for the sun~LSD~madness & blood~must be some way out of here~death dreams in the live parade~
~Writer’s Block~
~Don’t Bug Me~
A few years ago I joined a writers’ group in Boulder, Colorado. We met in a coffee shop and sipped latte mochas. A few shy writers blushed and stammered their way through readings of works in progress but the prevalent theme for the three meetings I attended was overcoming the dreaded writer’s block. I opined to my nine peers that there was no such thing. There is always something to write about. Naming and forcing the subject is a discipline necessarily mastered but impossible at times to adhere to. Writers write, breathers breathe. Contemplating the philosophy of kings and the spin you might put on it with your writer’s insight sounds great in a nutshell but what if the nutshell is just that and no nut inside.
An ant crawled across my foot and all my kings disappeared. A member of the group, a bright lady from a local shaman school, asked me what I was doing. Can people really be taught to be shamans, I wondered. She unwittingly answered my unspoken question with one of her own, “What is your being filled with?”
“Nothing,” I replied, “I am empty, gone to join the ant slaves.”
“Empty,” she sighed, “Yes that is the goal our spirits should follow.”
Later that week our little group busied itself with plans to stage our first public reading. I volunteered to lead off with a piece written to howl, Alms for the Digger. Following a screeching mouth harp counterpoint (a prearranged signal), a lady friend of mine, unknown to the group, walked through the room and out the door in the buff. Another accomplice, a younger brother home from prison, stepped on a handful of flash powder grenades simulating gunshots. Quite pleased with the dynamics of madness and mayhem we had created, I gathered up my notebooks and harps. The naked lady drove the getaway car. She dropped me at home, escorted my sex-starved brother to a XXX rated motel with movies and hot tubs.
A week or so later I stopped by the coffee shop. There was a sign on the door, “Out of Business.” I don’t know what happened to my writer’s block friends. There’s something to ponder if I ever escape from the ants.
The muse is where it finds you.
~Tom (WordWulf) Sterner~
~Television/Boom Box~
~Farewell Captain Charlie~
~Esplanade~
~Alms for the Digger~
Comments
27th Feb 2011 (#)
very interesting read thanks for sharing
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28th Feb 2011 (#)
I liked these 3 sentences the most.
//There is always something to write about.
Writers write, breathers breathe.
The muse is where it finds you.//
In a lighter vein, I would have titled thus: Writer's block drives you Out of Business!
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28th Feb 2011 (#)
I like that!
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