Writer's Block

I rarely get writer’s block. Perhaps that’s because, as Heather says, brevity of speech is not my strong suit. Frequently I need to cut my original drafts for He Said/She Said in half (since we give ourselves a limit of 250 words). I wrote a drama once, aiming for a 15 minute piece, and discovered, while practicing, that it was actually 30 minutes. So, I cut it in half. It was painful to do so but rewarding at the same time, since it gave me lots of back story to go on in portraying the role.

Even though I know it’s different, I liken writer’s block to forgetting a line in a play. In college, my drama coach told me that if I ever dropped a line I should just say whatever popped into my head to keep the scene moving forward. “In fact,” she pointed out, “you could just blurt out ‘I’ve got a turkey coming in the mail!’” Believe it or not, 90 percent of the time it would actually jostle my brain to recall the real line I was supposed to say.

With that, I’ll close this post by saying, “I’ve got a turkey coming in the mail!”

Now, magically, I’ve got in mind what I really wanted to say about writer’s block, but since I’ve used up my 250 words, you all will just have to use your imagination as to what I was going to say. See ya Wednesday!

Maybe I should just claim that I have writer’s block right now and then I would be done! Woo hoo! But I guess that would be el-lamo. So I won’t.

I have to say that I used to be a much more prolific writer than I am now. When I was young I used to write constantly; poems, short stories, letters, you name it. I don’t know what happened, but I often have trouble getting words out of my head.

Strangely enough, I have more trouble when I try to write on paper than when I’m on my computer. Maybe it’s because I have gotten used to being able to edit at will or something. It actually makes me kind of sad though that I can’t open a new notebook and have words flow onto the page like I used to. Part of me just thinks I need to make myself do it but that’s not much fun either.

I often seem to be able to write great things in my head. And then they just won’t. come.out. Stupid brain.

OK, it’s 99ish degrees in Madrid, I kid you not. My brain is mush. That is all.