Would you believe it? I have writer’s block today: can’t drum up a single thing to put in print.
Well, maybe this will help: Immortal, Invisible God Only Wise, sung by the congregation at St. Paul’s Cathedral, England.
Tag: writer’s block
Alas, Poor Violet! (‘Oy, Rodney’)
Who would have ever thought that Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, would have bogged down after a mere 530 chapters?
She blames me for it.
“What am I supposed to do with that frothing dragon of yours?” she shouts on the telephone. Really, I’m not up for this. “And I’d have married Lady Margo Cargo and Lord Jeremy Coldsore 300 chapters ago, if I’d had my way!”
“You can’t do that. It would be bigamy.”
To show me who means business, she has embarked on a new plot line that has nothing to do with anything that went before it. “It’s prehistoric mammoths tearing apart suburban villages–and we have to see if hand grenades can stop ’em,” she parobviates.
I venture the observation that there is a movie very similar to that, only set in India instead of the suburbs. This earns me 15 minutes of abuse.
Well, give her a week and see if she comes up with something. Oy, Rodney meets Dracula, something along those lines… but I’m only guessing.
Violet Crepuscular: ‘I Have No Ideas!’ (‘Oy, Rodney’)
Sooner or later it comes to every writer (with the notable exception of Edgar Rice Burroughs): that conviction of utter hopelessness, that inability to write another word. We call it “Maria.”
Everything is set up for Violet Crepuscular, The Queen of Suspense, to embark on Chapter DCCXLIV of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney. The June Taylor Dancers are lurking in the woods around Scurveyshire. Lord Jeremy has his 20-pound accordion. {“Does it weigh 20 pounds, did it cost 20 pounds, or both?” we hear you ask.) Mr. Pudding has organized his newts.
And there’s poor Violet, stuck in neutral.
“A Greek fortune-teller told me this would happen!” she confides in her rapidly diminishing host of readers. “How told me in great detail how to avoid it; but I don’t speak Greek, so I didn’t understand a word of it.”
The publisher is thinking of bringing in a ghost writer, but that would require a seance.
“I have to break through!” Ms. Crepuscular agonizes. “There must be dozens of readers waiting tensely for my next chapter!” Will the newts run wild? Will the June Taylor Dancers dance to Lord Jeremy’s tune? Has the evil medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney, come back to stay? Is the theater really dead?
[Advice to Violet: You need an agent, kiddo. Binky Fong Associates is looking for new authors to introduce to a largely Manchurian audience. Tell ’em A Guy sent you.]
‘The Return of Black Rodney’ (‘Oy, Rodney’)
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At last! Chapter DCCXLIV of Violet Crepuscular’s classic (if interminable) romance, Oy, Rodney.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Ms Crepuscular addresses her uncountable multitude of readers. “I misplaced my notebook and couldn’t remember what was supposed to happen in the story.” She refuses to tell us where the notebook turned up. When our associate editor tried to find out, goons came to his door.
“A lot of people are mad at me for bringing the June Taylor Dancers in and making them villains,” she continues. “Well, wait’ll you read about the music Lord Jeremy plays on his 20-pound accordion! We’re thinking of including an audio disc in the book, when it’s published. Warning! It would be most unwise to play this music to any potentially dangerous animals or humans.
Meanwhile, we are still waiting for Chapter DCCXLIV. She hasn’t told us anything about it! Has she actually written it? We sent some of our goons to her door to find out. (Yes, there are more goons in the publishing industry than you would ever imagine. We can’t do without them.) After some very rough treatment, Ms. Crepuscular admits she hasn’t written anything in several weeks.
“I can’t help it!” she exfoliates. “Haven’t you ever heard of writer’s block? That awful, unbearable sense of just not knowing what to write! I wake up screaming, I tell you!”
The medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney–well, he seems to be missing, too.
Help! I’m Stuck!
I don’t often run into writer’s block, but it’s hit me hard this afternoon. I’m stuck in neutral. “I’m becalmed, Jim!” (Billy Bones in Treasure Island).
I don’t know what to write for Newswithviews, and it’s already too late to start it today, so it will have to be done or not done tomorrow. I’ve also hit a slow patch in Ozias, Prince Enthroned. You can’t write slow stuff just to fill pages: you have to wait for the next idea to come along.
As for nooze posts–well, I can only do so many before I have to stop.
Suggestions, anyone? I’m open to suggestions from my loyal readers. Anybody out there got a pair of jumper cables?
A Parable of a Pogo Stick
Here’s a boy who wants to set a record for pogo stick jumps; and I think there might be a lesson here. To wit: “Keep on jumping and jumping and jumping some more, and eventually you’ll fall.” Ouch.
I was a great pogo stick artist in my boyhood. If my mother had ever seen some of the tricks I got up to, she would’ve plotzed. And before I could fall and suffer a real injury, another kid borrowed my pogo stick and wrecked it.
Today I seem to be battling writer’s block. (“Well, of course you are! Why else would you be writing about a pogo stick?” I just can’t generate a Newswithviews column this week–after I don’t know how many weeks in a row. I mean, there’s so much really bad nooze out there, I can’t decide what to write about.
So I guess I might as well sign off until the evening, when I’ll have the pleasure of selecting and posting a cat or dog video. Or some other nice critter.
And then tomorrow morning I can try again.
Stuck on Wednesday
What to do, what to do?
It’s raining, so I can’t sit outside and write my book–and just about to stage the climax, too. And I don’t feel like writing about the phony election, but what else is there? I”m a day late in writing a Newswithviews column and I guess that’ll have to be about the election–college nooze is just the same-old same-old, white people are bad, white people deserve to be punished, higher education doing its thing.
Incredibly difficult trivia question: Name one institution that hasn’t been turned against us. That hasn’t sold out to Far Left Crazy. Go ahead, try–just one. Betcha can’t do it.
As an old reporter and term paper writer, I never suffer from writer’s block–could never afford to. Never had the time. I don’t have writer’s block now: I just hate the nooze that’s out there to cover. How about an extra hymn instead?
Sorry, I Can’t Do It
I’m sorry. But this month is shot and I’m sitting here staring at the keyboard and the screen and just can’t seem to write anything. I’m even having trouble writing this.
My wife insists I take the afternoon off. Might as well try it.
Please, please feel entirely free to start profound, witty, and exciting conversations wherever you have room to leave a comment. That way I can say we’re having an experiment to see if readers can write the blog
I hope I can return and get to work in a couple of hours. Well, I pray I can, at least.
Ms. Crepuscular Re-Calibrates (‘Oy, Rodney’)
Holy cow! Could this be the end of Oy, Rodney–the world’s most epic romance novel?
Introducing what ought to be Chapter CCCLVI–we don’t know what happened to Chapter CCCLV–Ms. Violet Crepuscular confides in her readers, “Dear readers, I confide in you my well-nigh overwhelming misgivings for the continuation of this tale. This latest development, I fear, exhausts my creative capacity. I hate it when that happens.”
Reader Suzanne Pokemon, of New Gambia, Wyoming, has amazed us by accurately predicting this latest development–wait for it!–
That the lost city of Driphdrash, lost for millenia… is somewhere in Scurveyshire. And that’s where the medieval sorcerer, Black Rodney, makes his headquarters.
No wonder she feels overwhelmed.
“I grew up on the legend of Driphdrash,” she confides in her readers (does she really have to keep doing that?), “and I always felt there must be more to it that the tiny snippets of lore we find printed in out-of-the-way places on assorted cereal boxes. Driphdrash the Mighty! Driphdrash the Doomed! The birthplace of gorgonzola. And to discover, this late in my life, that it’s hidden somewhere in the county of Scurveyshire, and that I, of all people, have been called upon to reveal its mysteries–I could just plotz!”
No wonder Violet feels overwhelmed. It’d knock me flat, and I know judo.
This is like watching a big motorboat zoom into a small marina with its 250-horsepower motor roaring on full throttle.
“This could affect Lord Jeremy Coldsore and Lady Margo Cargo’s wedding plans,” Ms. Crepuscular (No! I won’t say it! A simple “writes” will have to do).
Here she takes time out for a Marshmallow Peeps-with-ketchup sandwich. Driphdrash will stay lost, if they know what’s good for them.