If I come to a meeting with clean fingernails and polished shoes, don’t kid yourself, it’s not for you. I have writer’s block

Why...

Is writing for me sometimes a pleasure and at others a chore? Today I needed to get on with the follow up to my debut thriller Fall Out, called The Bastion. But as is often the case, I am stuck. Of course it’s not directly my fault. My Muse must have deserted me for someone more worthy, or the moon is aligned in such a way that my creative juices are drier than a cinnamon stick. Whatever the cause, anything is better than staring at a blank keyboard. I have just polished all my shoes. Nothing. So polished my belts as well. Still just white noise in my head rather than a new character or plot twist. Cut my nails, tweaked out nose hair, squeezed a few back heads. Zero. I even slung an angry riposte to some fool on Facebook. Still zip. The fool on Facebook made me laugh though. After a fatuous and totally incorrect comment about deer culling that I refuted with an article from the left leaning The Guardian entitled, We must kill Bambi. Why deer culling is a no brainer the response was: “Who asked you for your opinion anyway. Fuck off.” The irony of not understanding when you put your own opinion out into a public forum, by definition invites a response, says a lot about the lack of debate in our social media age. Most bloggers just want their voice heard, not challenged. It’s me me me on a platform that is marketed as us us us!  If I actually understood the origami that is ironing, I might even see if I could attack the pile of shirts that need attention. Tonight we are due out to dinner and I will be as well manicured as a teenager trying to take out the preacher man’s daughter. My host will take it as a compliment. But for me it will be as if Samuel Taylor Coleridge himself had hung the albatross around my neck.

...and another thing

However the reverse is equally true. When my imagination is ringing the creative bell I can write for hours on end and after a few days look like I have been living in a tumble dryer; disheveled, creased and a touch dizzy. But after a shave, shower and a sleep, I’m as calm as Captain Jean Luc Picard on prozac. Writing is a piece of cake. No idea what the fuss was!

So, my friends when you see me, watch out for tell tale signs. If I look neat and tidy don’t ask me how the book is going… unless you want a poke in the eye.

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