The Thing About Writing

          

“For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word.”

—Catherine Drinker Bowen    

          

My posts have ceased to exist for a loooonnnnnnggggg while and the reason is simple. I'm struggling with a good plot twist to my next book, PLUS prepping my promo materials for a book fair I'm participating in at the end of the month. Many of you would refer to this as Writer's Block, but if you only knew what those two words actually mean. Scratch under the surface of their syllables, just once, and you'll wield a new respect for the writer that can't deliver on time.

         

          Imagine that it's spring cleaning day in your household. Also the day before the evening in which you're having forty guests over for dinner, to be followed by light and airy drinks on the veranda. (Such a better word then porch!) Y'all know what that means? You tap into that ounce of Southern hospitality and you clean house. Literally, you scrub, spit, and shine on everything until not an atom of dirt remains.

         

          All except... that one smudge. One smudge, disrupting the otherwise seamless gloss of your dining room table. The table mustn't be covered in a cloth, it doesn't go with your spring-themed decor. You've gone through two spray cans of lemon Pledge, trying, willing it to disappear through the rigorous strain of your triceps. But it doesn't. It remains.

         

          Now, take that annoyance, that hovering obsession for perfection, that temple-pounding frustration, hurling forth in a lethal growl. Up through the throat, vibrating from your eyes as well as your mouth as you glare at the smudge. The kind of growl that has your friends and family maintaining a twenty-foot radius to ensure their safety. Take all this... and then you might have an idea of what writer's block is.

         

          Writer's block can be a cement wall anywhere between four inches to four miles thick. Writers break through it eventually; there's just never any telling how long that might be or how many times he or she will have to thwack their heads into the wall to get it to come crumbling down. But us writers are known for our thick heads. We may be sensitive, but we're also thick and stubborn. We use our writings to convey the many ways in which life can be seen. Writers bravely uncork the wine of their imagination and pour it into any glass they can find. And our fatal flaw is that we want perfection in that vision, so that people don't mess up what we're trying to say. So that we don't mess up what we're trying to say.

         

          There's something of the size and weight of a writer's block. At least mine anyway. No worries, though. I'll come sailing over this hump eventually and be back to posting regularly. As for that book fair I mentioned:

SUMMER LOCAL AUTHOR EXHIBITION

Barnes & Noble Booksellers

4015 Medina Rd, Akron OH 44333

Saturday, June 30th (1-3pm)

Don't miss it! My book, 'Final Truth' will be on the shelves for purchase, if you don't already have your own fabulous copy. Stop by my booth, ask me questions, and learn about any upcoming projects!

Well... back to NOT writing.

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”

—Ernest Hemingway