Wednesday, January 20, 2010

I don't know what I'm going to say

I've gone completely dry.  Devoid of ideas.  Hopefully temporary.  It usually is.  

I seem to keep waking up around 5 a.m., well before the alarm goes off.    I guess I trained myself to do that so I could come up into the studio for some creative time before the regular day begins.  But the last couple of days I come up to the studio and sit in the chair like Rodin's Thinker...pretending to be pensive and thoughtful but actually possessing a brain of marble.  And I probably weigh more.  Maybe not.  The Thinker is stone, after all.  But I probably look like I weigh more. 

But I've got nothing to say.  No pictures to print.  No snap in the synapses.

So maybe I should take my own advice.  I'm pretty good at giving advice, maybe I might practice what I preach.  (Sometimes I dislike overused phrases like the plague.)  Or walk the walk.  Walk the talk?  Walk on a balk.  What, exactly is a balk anyway?   Maybe my mind is balking at being harnessed this morning.  But, I mean in baseball...I've never figured out exactly what the pitcher does or doesn't do that suddenly makes umpires run out waving baserunners around and coaches streaming out to scream at the umps.   It's a hesitation of some kind (or lack of hesitation) and has something to do with planting the foot.  That's all right, I also get confused by illegal formations in football.  And I don't understand cricket or rugby at all.  

Where was I.   Oh yes...following my own advice about writer's block.  Which is, "Just sit down and write anything.."    It is kind of like jump starting a car.   Fingers move on keyboard creating a kind of external energy and words appear on the screen and my mind, despite its balkiness, looks at the words and is forced to try and make sense of them. 

And sometimes I try and wake up Butler and Bagman because they help me think. 

BUTLER (softly from a dark corner):  I've been awake since 2. 

"Why didn't you say something?"

BUTLER:  "You didn't ask.   I did think of correcting you because you said you came up to the studio when you know very well that our office is "down."   You sleep on the top three floors of the old Victorian mansion, Bagman and I have our bedrooms off the dark hallway on the first floor, and the office is a plush library with a fireplace and three desks next to the waiting room where we entertain visitors by surprising them with the trap door to the swimming pool. 

"I was referring to my actual office that used to be Brian's room until he got married and I converted the ping pong table to a matte-cutting table."

BUTLER: "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't realize which reality you were in."

And now I am distracted and can't remember what I was going to say.  Which is far different from when I started and didn't know what I was going to say.  Not remembering infers that there was actually something to say in the first place.   Damn.  Stuck again. 

Although I have been thinking about a subject which is near and dear to my heart...maybe not so "dear".  It has to do with the origins of creativity and energy in my life.  How my sense of myself has changed over time.  But I'm not sure I'm quite ready to talk about it on blogspot even though advertisements on television talk about it all the time...erectile dysfu..."

WHAM!   Bagman explodes out of nowhere, his huge, hairy, smelly bulk slamming me backwards off my chair and onto the plush carpet.  My head bangs painfully against a fireplace poker.  Butler is screaming, "Illegal formation!"  I feel like I am about to swoon, which surprises me because I always thought that swooning was confined to the female of the species.  Just before I black out, I hear Bagman's voice, loud at first then fading away...

BAGMAN (pinning my typing fingers to the floor):  "NEVER!  NO!  Not that...not... that..."

13 comments:

  1. I sympathise, I really do: we've all been there. Like you, it seems, my best work comes around 5 am - or last thing at might, the v ery last, after I have gone to bed - but only if I've been thinking about something beforehand. Having a topic or an idea in my mind as I am falling asleep is usually good. The advice to write anything s good. Or open a book randomly and write from the first phrase that jumps out at you. Most important of all, though (I think!) is: kn ow that it will pass.

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  2. Pretty impressive post for having nothing to say!
    No bleeding on the field.
    Niamh is doing a thing over at Various Cushions where Wednesdays she posts things that people want to post but can't on their own blog because they know the people that read.

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  3. Illegal formations are frustrating for both teams! :)

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  4. I've never been able to figure out a balk in baseball either.

    But I suspect it has something to do with erectile dysfunction.

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  5. If sports were just played--and not watched, listened to, discussed, anticipated, analyzed, or talked about--except by the players among themselves, would not the world be a finer place? I know as little about baseball and football as I do about cricket and bocci ball: next to nothing. I'm with Barry: interest in sports must have something to do with ed. and perhaps, relationship avoidance, too.

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  6. Since I don't have ED, I really can't empathize but I do get writer's block and usually go get some tea and chocolate and watch NCIS until it passes.

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  7. this too shall pass...
    Did you know yesterday was Edgar Allen Poe's 201st birthday and the Poe Toaster was a no-show for the first time in 60 years...I believe you too, will know this sort of adoration!
    ~AM

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  8. back in the old days we used to have a grand spring cleaning. all the cupboards were emptied, all the blankets and sheets, and rugs hung out in the sunshine to Freshen....
    seems like this would be useful for the clusters of writers block also, a fresh clean look at the world around you....

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  9. Well, your writer's block turned into quite an interesting post. Hmm.

    And sometimes you don't even have to write about a topic to stir up the imagination and the comments. LOL

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  10. That was a lot to say for someone who had nothing to say. I was born talking, and I haven't been blogging for too long, so I haven't run out yet....I'm sure it will happen and in desperation....who knows what I might decide to talk about....only I have no one to stop me. :)

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  11. I would have just said "I've got nothing" and left it at that....I'm glad you didn't :)

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  12. I agree, for someone with nothing to say, you said it.
    QMM

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  13. The last commenter took the words right out of my mouth.

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