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Archive for November 16th, 2007

3AM and there is nothing to write about

Posted by danleone on November 16th, 2007

How proud am I that I was literally awoken by the creative juices flowing in my bladder at 3AM! I must have peed it all out because here I am sitting on couch, laptop appropriately on lap, waiting for words to happen. I got nothing.

What is interesting about writing is that you cannot see the time span from the last sentence to this one I am typing now. It has been exactly 14 minutes since I told you I was happy that the creative juices were flowing. 14 damn minutes of sitting here with fingers poised eagerly awaiting the words to spill forth out of my fingertips and onto the screen. I still got nothing.

Now what? Does this exercise of just writing anything down and letting the muse take over and watch as she (the muse’s name is Sally) coaxes letters into words, words into coherent sentences, sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into a post worth reading? Guess what? I got nothing.

I could just go into my very extensive archive and grab one of the two posts that I am actually proud of and just repost them. But then I would no longer be writing. I would be cutting and pasting. So, I sit here and I still got nothing.

But,  4 paragraphs later, I still haven’t come up with a cogent thought. Sometimes I think that this is what separates the real writers like both of you from the poseurs.  The act of typing is no closer to writing than the act of vomiting is. Whether the vomitus spews forth from my mouth or from the tips of my fingers is no different. All this talk of projectile vomiting and I still got nothing.

I could just ask both of you a question instead and revel in your words of wisdom. To non-writers like me, hearing how you shape your words into juicy, bite-sized morsels of art, makes my mouth water. It also makes what is left of my self-esteem fade to black.  Don’t worry about me, there has to be some vanity that comes with blogging. If you really think about it. I mean a blog is an online journal. If it ended there, then that would be fine. We would all have our computers to type our “Dear Diary’s” into. But that is not where it ends. With blogging, we take those words, those words that in the old days we used to protect with one of those little, itsy-bitsy keys, and proudly display them for hundreds of people a day. “Dear Diary: Today I farted.” Press PUBLISH. “Dear Diary: I wonder if Dorothy really likes me.” SUBMIT. “Dear Diary: Am I REALLY the only guy with a diary?” POST.  Now what? I got lots of sentences, but I still got nothing to chew on. Sentence vs Substance.

So, to make a very short story long: I have written about writing; actually, I have not-written about not-writing…again. I can only come up with one conclusion….I got nothing. As my dearest newest blog-charmer, Lyssa, says: “I’m officially out of material. The well has run dry.” Whereas she has what real writers call “Writer’s Block,” I have what Non-Writers call “A Dose of Reality.”

Go visit some real writing here, here, here and here.

Mom and Dad

Posted by danleone on November 16th, 2007

Now you know where I get my disarming good looks!