Babbling through writer’s block

Writer’s block is not a state of not being able to find anything to say. It is a state of having so much to say that you can’t figure out where to start. Writer’s block is like a huge log jam in a river and you have to figure out which log to move. While standing on it, of course.

I’m always so damn smart when other people complain of writer’s block. I lean back in my leather chair, put my feet on my desk, and if I smoked a pipe, I would light it. But I don’t. And the chair is actually some faux leather vinyl, to be honest.

I speak in a slightly British accent and suggest that the quickest way to end the stand-off is to start typing words. Anything. Start pushing logs around and eventually the current will take over. Always so easy to give advice.

Oh God!! And add photographs to it! Yesterday I drove to Lowes to buy 77 bricks and I left the camera at home. Now I realize that not everyone compulsively takes the camera to buy bricks. But ever since I can remember, I’ve been terrified of spotting a good photo opportunity and not having a camera.

A photograph indicative of nothing in this blog
although Reggie Girl recently shot pictures of a car show.

The truth is, of course, that I regularly spot good photo opportunities and I do have my camera. But I don’t stop. Damn the inertia of the mundane world! Yesterday someone who was just getting into photography asked me for some advice. I said, in a slightly German accent this time, the most important photographic accessory was the brake pedal in the car.

Every day for a year and a half, on my way to work, I pass a lawn and garden shop that has a line of wooden chairs out front – each one painted a different brilliant color. In the morning, the low angle sun hits these chairs and makes them explode from a neutral background. Twice I have almost rear-ended someone in stop and go traffic because I have been admiring them. Not once have I ever stopped to shoot them. Always so easy to give advice.

But I went to Lowes without taking my camera. I did so because I have so many recent pictures in my computer, waiting to be reviewed, deleted, sorted, filed, adjusted, manipulated, tagged, and maybe even posted or framed, that I was afraid to take any more.

The non-indicative picture having been played with...

And for two days now, I’ve gone to Blogspot, started to read the blogs of people I follow and turned it off and opened up Photoshop, looked at all the junk there, turned it off, opened up Word, switched to Blogspot, to Photoshop, to Word…

Bagman was even forced to admit for the first time in his life that there might be too many women in the world.

I think I’ll go take bricks out of the car.

But, hey! I had writer’s block and started typing about anything and look! A blog! I sure give good advice!