Thursday, April 5, 2007

A Writer’s Life...A Writer’s Block

The first few weeks after I gave noticed the goddesses were courting my writing muse and me every night. In fact, on that infamous plane trip back home, a character came to me. She openly gave me her name, Willow May, and shared a little about herself, but not her story. However, I did have a story that had been lingering around in the back of my mind. It had been there for some time, ever since my sister and I caught Bedazzled one late night on TV. Not the recent version, but the original with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. That movie sparked an idea for a story. It did not have to do with selling your soul to the devil, but more with death and how to bargain your way out of it. However, what I thought was just one story, ended up being a series of short ones, and did not follow my initial plot line at all.

Then when it was official and my day job became my writing job, do you know what happened? Those goddesses with their dark and fickle sense of humor left. Can you believe that? Not only did they leave, but also they took my writing muse with them. I have the up-most respect and admiration for the Universe and the messages she conveys. It is that sometimes, okay, most of the time, I just don’t get them. What is she trying to tell me?!?

Staring at a blank screen with the appearance of doing nothing was excruciating for me. I came from a corporate background where you had at least 2 conference calls going at once while responding to emails, working on 5 spreadsheets, and answering the questions of 10 different people on 10 different subjects who have wandered into your office within 10 minutes. I needed to be writing, writing, writing, like the wind, fingers unable to keep up, 80,000 words in an hour, an epic series of novels in a week, writing, writing, writing. I tried several free writing exercises, but the concept was difficult to grasp. To write non-stop for 30 minutes for no reason and it doesn’t have to make sense because it never has to be used...what?!? I mean please, I was a productivity manager for goodness sake, every second has to count for manufacturing that widget, or in my case now, that story. Hum, perhaps having a little more patience may be something I need to work on too.

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