We Hate It When We Can't Write

We basically curse God, rend our garments, and find a dung heap to sit on and brood.  We're convinced we'll never write again, and with much gnashing of teeth we try to think of how we'll spend the rest of our life.  Nothing comes to mind.  Because for us it's writing or nothing.  We cannot not write, so when we find ourselves temporarily stymied it's as if the world has come to an end.  Arthur Rimbaud solved the problem by moving to Abyssinia and becoming a gun runner, and possibly even a slaver.  He lived in an extinct volcano and suffered horribly in the heat.  This is not for us.  We are not cut out for extinct volcano living, and the idea of running guns sounds dangerous.  So we have to wait it out, which there are few things we're worse at than waiting.  Yesterday we had a tooth extracted, and the wait (it must have been a half hour) in the little room they sat us in was almost unbearable.  All kinds of thoughts came to our mind.  We looked around for a tank of nitrous oxide, thinking that would help us pass the time.  And it would have.  But there was no nitrous available, and nothing to look at but the diplomas of the doctor on the walls.  He sure had a lot of diplomas.  We're pretty sure they were all bogus.  Because when this guy appeared with his pair of pliers in his hairy hand he was like "Novacaine! Novacaine is for pussies.  Let's do this the old fashioned way!"  Okay, so that never happened.  Actually he was quite good.  He had that tooth out of our mouth in about 30 seconds.  Needless to say, we couldn't write for the rest of the day, so jittery were we from the whole hellish experience.  And last night we woke up in intense pain and had trouble falling back asleep, so today looks like a washout too.  But you never know.  Rimbaud recommended that a poet undergo a derangement of all the senses, and while a slight case of fatigue probably wasn't what he was talking about, it's the best we can do. 

Comments

[Martijn]

I'm a big green ball of sympathy here, Mike, for both tooth and writing block. Really sympathetic and sweet; just don't feed me after midnight. (No, I never saw that film either.) Hang in there!

[UF MIKE]

I shall, my friend.

[Jeffers]

You just had a super-crazy outpouring of creativity, you damned galoot. There is no wasy that that can continue without having to go through some sort of pychic recharge/downtime. Without that, you may write, but all you're going to be able to do is rehash what you've just done & that work will inevitably be a creative drop-step from what came before. You can bitch about it, but take the time to regroup without hotwiring the skullbeam, you'll be writing soon.

So there.

[UF MIKE]

You're right. But it burns! It burns!

[sodajerk]

When you come to Scotland and visit Edinburgh Castle you will see why the early inhabitants of the area we now call Edinburgh, made their first settlements here, in what is now the city of Edinburgh. People have always sought a safe refuge, and the volcanic rock that forms the base of Edinburgh Castle, has always afforded the ultimate safe and defensive position in Edinburgh.

you havin a go Mike,eh...eh.!

[sodajerk]

sorry,dude...........uptown on a friday nite.you kno how it gets............lets shake on it.........no harm don.........WAIT!didyou just look at my pint??????/.........why i orta!!!..........(voice from the back)....
leave him SJ,he will kick yer heid in.......he runs and does weights and that...

[Bryon]

What Jeff said. Put on your kilt and rest on your laurels.

[gillian]

I blame the patriots.

[Keith]

sure you didn't have a backwards time warp to Dr. Strickler in 1970's...I had the same expirence then and never been a fan of Dentist since?

[sodajerk]

and my Hardies?