How bad is it? I'm lying here, watching TV. A commercial for "Flex Seal Clear" comes on. The pitchman enthuses about Flex Seal's ability to prevent water damage by forming watertight seals around cracks. The dramatic demonstration: the bottom of a rowboat is replaced with a sheet of clear plexiglass. Numerous holes are drilled in the plexiglass, and then the whole things is sprayed with Flex Seal Clear. The next thing we see: The pitchman in the boat, happily bobbing on the waves, the seal holding, fish swimming oblivious below...
...And I'm lying there thinking: Hey, THIS could make a good blog post!
Showing posts with label Writer's Block. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writer's Block. Show all posts
Friday, January 3, 2014
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Ruminations on Writer's Block
DOS chastised me today for a recent spate of "non-posts": those days when it's all I can do to muster the will to post a "Sorry" or a link to a video of kittens playing with ducklings. His advice: If I have nothing to write about, just don't write. Let a day go by. See if anyone notices. And, if anyone DOES complain, plead ignorant indignation: "What do you mean, no post? I certainly wrote something. If my post didn't show up on your internet, take it up with your service provider! And, no, I will NOT supply a back issue!"
Believe me, I've considered it. What stops me, frankly, is fear. Inertia beckons. Succumb to laziness once, what's to stop one from succumbing again? Harper Lee took a day off after finishing To Kill a Mockingbird; now, fifty-plus years later, we're still waiting for Mockingbird's Revenge!
I don't call what I've "got" writer's block: I've always thought that a somewhat precious notion. Self-indulgent writers trying to dignify laziness with pseudo-psychological diagnoses. I always tell my students--and I stand by this--that, if they have nothing to write about, then they're not paying attention. There are any number of potential topics: One need only pick a newspaper or magazine article at random and riff for a couple of hundred words. If someone said, "Hey, Solipsist, give me 500 words on '[INSERT TOPIC HERE],'" I know I could fulfill the order. (Quantity, not quality, guaranteed.)
The problem is more writer's apathy. I don't care enough about any topic to expend energy on it, a feeling compounded by a sense that I have nothing new to add. What insight do I have to offer on the latest turmoil in the Middle East or Notre Dame's chances in the BCS Championship? Gloating over Republican misery, while enjoyable, gets old, too.
These things are cyclical. Tomorrow or the next day--or a week and a half from now--I will see something in the paper or experience something at work that will stir my creative juices. Just as I go through extended dry periods, I also experience weeks where virtually everything provides a trove of blogworthy material. But if I don't force myself to plow through the fallow periods, I won't be ready to go when the floodgates open.
So, DOS, take the good with the bad with the pointless. Even a Hall-of-Famer gets a base hit only about thirty percent of the time. That doesn't stop him from taking every at bat.
Believe me, I've considered it. What stops me, frankly, is fear. Inertia beckons. Succumb to laziness once, what's to stop one from succumbing again? Harper Lee took a day off after finishing To Kill a Mockingbird; now, fifty-plus years later, we're still waiting for Mockingbird's Revenge!
I don't call what I've "got" writer's block: I've always thought that a somewhat precious notion. Self-indulgent writers trying to dignify laziness with pseudo-psychological diagnoses. I always tell my students--and I stand by this--that, if they have nothing to write about, then they're not paying attention. There are any number of potential topics: One need only pick a newspaper or magazine article at random and riff for a couple of hundred words. If someone said, "Hey, Solipsist, give me 500 words on '[INSERT TOPIC HERE],'" I know I could fulfill the order. (Quantity, not quality, guaranteed.)
The problem is more writer's apathy. I don't care enough about any topic to expend energy on it, a feeling compounded by a sense that I have nothing new to add. What insight do I have to offer on the latest turmoil in the Middle East or Notre Dame's chances in the BCS Championship? Gloating over Republican misery, while enjoyable, gets old, too.
These things are cyclical. Tomorrow or the next day--or a week and a half from now--I will see something in the paper or experience something at work that will stir my creative juices. Just as I go through extended dry periods, I also experience weeks where virtually everything provides a trove of blogworthy material. But if I don't force myself to plow through the fallow periods, I won't be ready to go when the floodgates open.
So, DOS, take the good with the bad with the pointless. Even a Hall-of-Famer gets a base hit only about thirty percent of the time. That doesn't stop him from taking every at bat.
Monday, October 8, 2012
BEST. WEBSITE. EVER!
Notice anything different about today's post? You probably don't, but I do--or I will in about 80 words. Tonight's musings, you see, are being composed not in their usual venue at Blogger.com, but rather on the Best. Website. Ever: "Written? Kitten!" (http://writtenkitten.net).
The site is exactly what it sounds like. OK, maybe that requires a bit more explanation. If you go to "Written? Kitten!" you will find an empty text box. Start writing in the box. After writing 100 words, you will be rewarded with a picture of a kitten! And as if that weren't enough, every 100 words thereafter--OH, I JUST GOT MY FIRST KITTEN OF THE DAY! OOOOOOHHHHH, IT'S A WIDDLE OWANGE OOGY-WOOGY WIF BLUE EYES AND A WIDDLE PINK NOSE!!!!
Ahem.
Sorry.
As I was saying, every 100 words thereafter, you will receive a "fresh kitten." If this isn't a cure for writer's block, I don't know what is. And consider the pedagogical possibilities. I'm thinking of requiring my students to type all their assignments on this site. "I'm sorry, Johnny. But I wanted at least a five-kitten essay. This is three kittens at most."
One caveat: You cannot save work on "Written? Kitten," so you need to copy and paste your work to a word processing program or e-mail every kitten or so. Still, it's more than worth any such minor inconvenience. Thanks to Ms. Brandy Gibson for introducing me to this site, a site that could go a long way towards making the world a better place.
The site is exactly what it sounds like. OK, maybe that requires a bit more explanation. If you go to "Written? Kitten!" you will find an empty text box. Start writing in the box. After writing 100 words, you will be rewarded with a picture of a kitten! And as if that weren't enough, every 100 words thereafter--OH, I JUST GOT MY FIRST KITTEN OF THE DAY! OOOOOOHHHHH, IT'S A WIDDLE OWANGE OOGY-WOOGY WIF BLUE EYES AND A WIDDLE PINK NOSE!!!!
Ahem.
Sorry.
As I was saying, every 100 words thereafter, you will receive a "fresh kitten." If this isn't a cure for writer's block, I don't know what is. And consider the pedagogical possibilities. I'm thinking of requiring my students to type all their assignments on this site. "I'm sorry, Johnny. But I wanted at least a five-kitten essay. This is three kittens at most."
One caveat: You cannot save work on "Written? Kitten," so you need to copy and paste your work to a word processing program or e-mail every kitten or so. Still, it's more than worth any such minor inconvenience. Thanks to Ms. Brandy Gibson for introducing me to this site, a site that could go a long way towards making the world a better place.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Blockage
Argh! Blogger's block. What to write about. . .what to write about. . . .
With everything going on in the world, you would think something would have caught our fancy, but all the news seems somehow . . . repetitive. Egypt's still in turmoil, the economy still sucks, roofs are collapsing in Connecticut. OK, that last one is not the kind of thing you see everyday. Seems that the flat roofs in Connecticut are no match for the incessant blizzards blanketing the Northeast. And even though we've always thought of snow as a nice, soft, fluffy sort of thing, it turns out that if it piles up, it can cause previously sturdy buildings to implode. Did you know that a shovelful of snow weighs about 50 pounds? So, y'know, three or four shovelfuls of snow will probably cause all manner of roof collapses.
All right, this is boring. Here's what we'll do: We're going to go to Wikipedia and look up a random article. Whatever subject pops up, that's what we'll write about. We can do it! We're just that good! We can turn positively ANYTHING into bloggy gold! Here we go! What have we got here. . . .
Celinki: An administrative village in the [Polish] administrative district of Gmina Wielichowo. . . .
Huh. . . .
See you tomorrow, everybody!
Solipsistography
"Winter's Punch Crumbles Roofs in New England"
With everything going on in the world, you would think something would have caught our fancy, but all the news seems somehow . . . repetitive. Egypt's still in turmoil, the economy still sucks, roofs are collapsing in Connecticut. OK, that last one is not the kind of thing you see everyday. Seems that the flat roofs in Connecticut are no match for the incessant blizzards blanketing the Northeast. And even though we've always thought of snow as a nice, soft, fluffy sort of thing, it turns out that if it piles up, it can cause previously sturdy buildings to implode. Did you know that a shovelful of snow weighs about 50 pounds? So, y'know, three or four shovelfuls of snow will probably cause all manner of roof collapses.
All right, this is boring. Here's what we'll do: We're going to go to Wikipedia and look up a random article. Whatever subject pops up, that's what we'll write about. We can do it! We're just that good! We can turn positively ANYTHING into bloggy gold! Here we go! What have we got here. . . .
Celinki: An administrative village in the [Polish] administrative district of Gmina Wielichowo. . . .
Huh. . . .
See you tomorrow, everybody!
Solipsistography
"Winter's Punch Crumbles Roofs in New England"
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