The title of this post comes from the fact that as I start this, it's due in exactly fourteen minutes. I've been sitting here staring at the same blank page for the last hour and a half, waiting for Blogina, the Muse of inspiration for this sort of endeavor, to kick in. I even got really desperate and tried to send her an Iris message like they do in the Percy Jackson series. (Little tip: I don't think Iris, the Greek messenger goddess, accepts Budweiser bottle caps. Maybe next time I'll see how I make out with Heineken, since I wouldn't know where to start to get a Greek drachma in my pocket, and if I did would I really want to spend it anyway?)
White noise. Endless hissing. Writer's blo--
Nope. Not finishing that thought. Just put me in de Nile and call me Cleopatra.
The idea of not having words terrifies me. More than just about any disability or infirmity I could name, the notion I may NOT be able to open a page and start blasting out words on three and a half seconds' notice scares me beyond belief. And when it actually happens, that I can't riff off seventeen hundred words on whatever strikes my fancy, it freaks me out.
Of course, the rewards for running through that blizzard of white noise are uniquely personal to the writer. Very few other fields of endeavor offer the thrill of having the Eureka moment when the words suddenly gel, the ideas come fast and furious, and your fingers can't fly across the keyboard fast enough to get them out of your head. When it's done, hopefully you've amused, entertained, excited, thrilled, or made the reader think. Any of those is a worthy pursuit, and it's even better when you make it on deadline!
I've been knee-deep in editing, but happily, tonight will hopefully be the last of that I do for a while. (For the Writing Out Child Abuse anthology, A light In the Darkness.) I've loved editing the authors who've joined in, but I'm ready to hand this baby over and let it walk as it will. In doing that, I can get back to the thing I do best.
Whipping out the words, and to hell with writer's block!
Until next time,
Best,
J.S. Wayne
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