Writer's Block

A blank virgin sheet of paper is quietly staring at you, cursor blinking idiotically. You stab the keys in determination, for write you must. Then BACKSPACE sends it all back to the womb of your mind. Half-baked ideas; you jeer. They just won’t do.  You wish that was ROTATRIM and not Microsoft Word, so you would crumple that accursed sheet of paper and eat its innards: Writer’s block! It happens to the best of us.

Three hours have elapsed and your boss’ disapproval is doing havoc to the last vestiges of your sanity. Three hours and that blinking cursor is still mocking you, timing you out, tightening the noose around your neck. The editor is soon making that call and you won’t have a story for him to print. An excuse just won’t do; plagiarism will no doubt come back to bite your nether regions. What to do?

You’re now sweating plasma. This is your twentieth attempt at writing something and it reads worse than the last. The chair you’re seated on is dissolving your butt; it’s frozen and doesn’t feel like yours anymore. You sweat some more and in frustration, you snap the laptop shut. To hell with that!

Rising from your seat of thorns, you strip off your sticky clothes that are clinging on you like a second skin.  A warm shower is in order. No, that cold refreshing beer first. You open your throat and toss that in with cold lunch leftovers. Now the shower, warm, and then cold, with hope of kick-starting that brain of yours that chose the one time you need it to go on holiday.

In the middle of the cold shower, the electricity is disconnected. For the longest 2 seconds of your life, you contemplate sobbing like the big boy you are. Face muscles distort grotesquely as you think about it. Right before you let the Nakivubo channel flood, the bulb flickers on. An idea hits you! You quickly rush out and plant your naked self on your chair to finish your story. You click ENTER and heave a sigh of relief.

Book author Cyrese Covelli is quoted to have said that, Writer’s block doesn’t exist…lack of imagination does. Writers don’t really have the luxury of not being able to write, for writing is their craft. A soldier will not say he doesn’t feel like going through drills in the morning just because of a slight drizzle; the mother won’t say that she doesn’t feel like cleaning her baby up after they soil themselves. They simply ignore those lazy bones and trudge on.  You never know you might surprise yourself and pull out a rabbit at a drop of a hat. Good luck!