Stop-Start Insecurities

“Lady, people aren't chocolates. Do you know what they are mostly? Bastards. Bastard-coated bastards with bastard fillings. But I don't find them half as annoying as I find naive bubble-headed optimists who walk around vomiting sunshine.”

At the moment, trying to write is, for me, like watching a magician in some cheap club where the wallpaper is peeling in strips and nobody ever applauds. Not even sarcastically. The magician's skin is coloured dull orange and his desperate, hopeful smile reveals teeth so white they look painted on. He removes his hat, puts his hand inside, and then...and then nothing. He just stands there with his fake smile and the light beginning to catch the perspiration at his hairline and the audience exchanging glances.

I haven't been able to work on Welcome To Forever in any detail for months now. In fact, I've barely worked on it at all. Other than that, my only works of any significance were Lanterns And Shades and my Trip Diary. I'm proud of the latter, but to be honest, Lanterns... was just a fluff piece, something I did for the blog readers and as an exercise in writing a lengthier piece of fiction. The rest was all random journal entries and erotic fiction that I've never felt was worth all that much, though I know there are those that disagree. Since New Year, nothing at all. The creative well is apparently dry.

I don't crave cigarettes or alcohol particularly, but I am harbouring a perverse desire to be back where I was just a couple of months ago, typing like a lunatic with a half-empty bottle on one side and an overflowing ashtray on the other, that burning in my stomach and the loss of inhibition that seemed to steal the stop-start insecurities out of my writing and let it flow till it felt like music. I'd write pages on that high, then stop for a cigarette to breathe the tension out of my system, pour myself another drink, and throw myself right back after whatever idea I was chasing...

I shouldn't let myself romanticise it that way. You and I both know that it's a matter of routine and habit, something that can be overcome with concentration and discipline. I freely admit that these are two virtues I do not possess in abundance, and that's probably what's making it so hard for me to get at a certain part of my brain right now. I have maybe eleven short stories in my head and as notes scribbled on various sheets of paper or entered into the message box of my mobile phone. Every time I come to write one, though, I find myself unable to begin. I type a few words, maybe get as far as a couple of sentences, then delete and start again, repeating until I lose interest and find something else to occupy me. I have to after a while, because I get to tapping my toes and my fingers, to chewing my nails and grinding my teeth, to tasting bourbon I haven't drunk and remembering how good a cigarette can taste when you haven't had one in a while.

I'm slightly less prolific in the blog than I was before, but at least I can still sit down and write a post. Same with the various forums and communities I visit. It's fiction that's the bitch. It's telling a story. When Welcome To Forever wasn't happening, I tried short stories in various genres. When that didn't work, I tried going back and doing some much-needed editing on older work. Nothing. Finally, I decided the other night that I was going to write a basic, blatant story about Romero-esque zombies. It wasn't going to be a tale I'd do anything with, just something simple and fun to get me back into the groove.

Two days I've been working at it now, and I don't even have a sentence.

Still, I'm sure I'll hit on something sooner or later. It's just that this is the first time I can recall being genuinely afflicted with a block I can't write my way around. At this point, I'd be happy if the magician lifted a handful of dry rabbit turds out of the hat, so long as I knew there was something in there.