Like many writers, I was recently plagued by a nasty bout of writer’s block. You all know it. Maybe you dread it. The only time inspiration struck was when I wasn’t trying. And when I wasn’t trying, I never seemed to have a typewriter or computer in front of me. Why? Because my mind was elsewhere. As I said, I wasn’t trying. Maybe I needed to not try harder.
To be fair, I did have my cell phone - or maybe I should I call it my device - chained to my flesh by an invisible link of sharp, bloody necessities. Truth was, I didn’t want to use the device’s recorder because I hate the sound of my own voice. To me, it sounds like Arnold Horshak but with more testosterone. And that's putting it gently. The few times I’d tried to make a recording, inspiration seemed to leak away. I was trying again. Was it my efforts or my fears that caused the leakage? It didn’t really matter. The goddam thoughts were gone. Maybe into someone else’s mind, less fearful, more deserving. If I see them somewhere I’ll recognize them because they are mine. I might kill him. Ot her.
How did I banish the Writer’s Block? How, you ask, did I finally set my mind free? Glad you brought it up.
It wasn't with any specific plan. I mean, I tried to “just start writing”, but knowing that I have very little to say, something that has rarely stopped me in the past, it seemed to cut me short. I tried reviewing some past ideas and pieces that I’d started but never finished up. Again, dead ends. Most of them were either juvenile, pointless and poorly written to boot. Sort of like this piece but not so well disguised. I did a number of mental face palms. Good thing no one saw.
I considered cleaning up a few old but finished pieces but I knew that was a cop out. I’m no writing pussy. I’d rather write nothing than fall back on an old story, even if it did need lots of editing. It wasn’t the time. My demon smiled at me like a Cheshire cat and danced gleefully around the room. I gave him the finger and I heard him laugh at me as he jumped out the window and disappeared. From the back yard I heard him say, “I’ll be back” sounding like Schwarzenegger. Having demons is bad enough. Having one with a sense of humor, well it’s not an enjoyable thing.
I tried sequestering myself away in the middle of the woods. I sat on a musty wood deck in the middle of the dark forest night in nothing but a t-shirt and a rocking chair named Mother. I called to the silent darkness to take me and swallow me whole so it could spit me out in my own way. The darkness wrapped itself around me, held my hand gently and said, “Fuck off. Go to bed. We’re not playing tonight.” So, I listened to it. I turned off my computer and went to bed.
In the morning, lots of coffee and a neighbor at the door, wanting to know why she could see my balls from her porch at 3:00 a.m. OK, just kidding about my testicles. My house is pretty isolated, her eyesight is poor and my balls are big but not that goddam huge. Which doesn’t mean she wasn’t looking. I know because I caught her. Twice. Enjoy Grandma. Look and enjoy.
Really? I mean really? No wonder no one wants to publish my stuff. But I digress.
Having temporarily thrown in the towel, I continued the next few days with mundane stuff. Dealing with my OCD daughter, talking with friends, going to work and posting random thoughts on Facebook in the hopes that at least one person would be offended. The word Shit Disturber comes to mind. OK, that’s two words. The important thing was, I did good. I know this because I offended a whole slew of people with just one post. It was a good day.
Ah Facebook. Key to Zuckerberg’s wealth and a market demographer’s wet dream, or at very least a nice little hand job in front of an Indian restaurant on Grand Avenue.
Too soon?
An unlikely source of inspiration, yet there it was. A friend and I were tag teaming on some unpopular comments about a shitty holiday celebrating a mass murderer – I’ll let you guess which one – but no one was biting. The troll remained hungry and I heard his stomach growl. My fellow Shit Disturber and I were as relentless as the Spanish Inquisition in a wealthy synagogue. I basked in our shared nasty outrage, and unexpectedly my block suddenly became unclogged. The hair went down the drain and clarity smiled at me. I heard the demon growl at me and stomp away like a five-year old who’s had his toy taken away. I wasn’t worried, though. He’d be back.
Now, it wasn’t quite as dramatic as an epiphany, that would be going too far and expecting too much, It was more like a calm realization. A junior epiphany. A fleeting bitch slap from the exasperated faeire of the wood. “Here you go, now shut up because we’re busy and your thoughts are bothering us.” “Oh yeah”, I said back, “well your goddam crickets are a pain in the ass and way to loud.” I heard a tiny voice say “Cicadas, asshole, not crickets.” Then the voices went away and I was sane again.
So, here was the thing. I’d been trying to write about something new, and I was trying to do it in a way that I’d never done before. I was trying to be someone I didn’t know. And for all the wrong reasons.
Most of my writing is filthy and sarcastic and surreal. I know you can’t tell that by my commentary here but believe me, it’s true. My attempts to be someone I didn’t know had clogged the drain and I didn’t know it until my friend inspired me by lighting a tinder of spite with our shared fire of bitter outrage. My crime that clogged the drain: I was being fake. And greedy to boot. The twins usually traveled together and this time was no exception.
I haven’t given up on trying to be a “real” writer, with products more socially acceptable that I could post publicly if I that’s what I really wanted. Stories where my most serious relatives might think, “I didn’t know he was that fucked up”, as opposed to the stuff I write now, which would produce harsher criticism, like “I know we’re related but that’s really wrong. Better unfriend him before someone in my social circle realizes I know this lunatic. They’ll throw me out of the country club for good.” A small distinction but still potent enough to lose the respect of a few cousins who I truly love, even though we live in different worlds. (Of course, my world is real and horrible, while theirs is happy and imaginary, but I’ll give them their ignorant fantasies as it makes them happy. For now.)
I haven’t given up writing about the lie called love either, although like many I’ve considered giving up on love itself. Instead, I’ve embraced my old ways like a hungry junkie coming home to the welcome arms of a spoon and a friendly flame. Sure, the stuff I’m spewing will have no commercial potential, and no one but the clinically insane or mildly schizophrenic will take any joy in it. But I will enjoy myself spitting it all out, wiping the misshapen bits from my chin and regurgitating it all in another form. And most importantly, my block is gone. Maybe, when no one is looking, I’ll run some water down the drain, just a trickle, to keep the hair from clogging it up too much. Then I’ll write a little bit about Love and Dopamine. But I goddam better enjoy it.