Tag: writers block

No-vember

screen-shot-2016-11-01-at-1-04-13-pmNovember.

In Denver there is sunshine and crunchy leaves. We have candy for breakfast and hot tea in thick mugs at night. Tomorrow we celebrate 13 years of marriage with dinner in a renowned restaurant. I will see a friends play and watch Oliver eat pizza to celebrate the end of his brother’s soccer season. We will canvass to get out the vote and watch the election returns with popcorn on the big bed. Still the kids tumble past blooming roses wearing shorts to school but soon there will be sweaters.

We will host a close friend on a stop of her families’ year long road trip. We will take them to museums and parks and bakeries. We will issue humble brags about how we have one car. We will head to LA to battle traffic and be tourists.  Steve will have a work trip and the boys and I will eat dinner with our fingers while reading Harry Potter. When it is the four of us their will be games in front of the fire. We dig our toes into the white sand of the Gulf of Mexico and brave Thanksgiving airport misery to visit my mom and her siblings for turkey and pifecta in NYC. We will go to Central Park and hunt Pokemon. When we get home we will only have a thin wisp of November left. Not really much at all. Just enough to squeeze in a lunch outdoors where 95% of our conversation is expressing amazement about the Denver weather.

November…It looks good, it sounds good, it even smells good…it just doesn’t deliver good work time.

It’s early to write off a whole month of writing but I think I am up for the challenge. I am going to be too busy. Things are going to be too fragmented. I am going to host and guest and fly and drive. I am going to meet and eat and probably something like greet as well. Whatever these things are they will get in the way of my mornings with my computer. I know they will.

I am telling myself that my life is too full to write but I have a sneaking suspicion that writing has left me before I left it.

Steve has tinnitus. The ringing in his ears is a result of hearing loss. His brain is missing out on sounds, so it creates its own. He says it sucks. This is what my brain is doing as well. Where I usually have opening sentences and strands of quotes that I can grab hold of and ride to some sort of story I instead have PTSA websites and grocery lists. It is my own version of ringing, and it too is pretty damn annoying.

November is telling me No. Or I am telling November no. Neither of us are admitting that the words left before the calendar changed.

It is easier to blame the on No-vember.

You might not see me around here for a while. I will be in California and Florida and New York. I will be in the middle school cafeteria. I will be ringing doorbells and building websites. I will being doing everything except writing.

See you in December. I hear that is a great month for words.

 

 

Sexpectations

sexpectations
More intimidating…empty bed or empty screen?

The longer you wait the harder it gets. Literally and figuratively. The expectations rise, as do the sexpectations.

 

It has been seven days since I produced any fresh new text. And three days since I have produced any fresh new sex. Both of these counts are significantly longer than average.

With each hour that passes I become more tense, and it becomes more difficult to produce anything.  Somehow the quickie, usually a low barrier for entry feels insufficient. The post most be meaningful and humorous. The acrobatics in bed numerous. This is tiring. Even to type about. In both areas performance anxiety creeps in where it rarely rears its head.

The solution to both problems is the same.

Forget the intricate weave of insight and intercourse. Let go of lingerie and lyrics. Ignore the verse and vigor. Lower that bar down to the floor.

Step 1. Write a shitty blog post.

Step 2. Have some crummy sex.

It is likely that one of these activities will exceed my expectations. At this point all signs say it will be the sex.

Get write to it. And right on it.

Drafted

 

I might have hit an all time record today with posts that will forever live in the draft list.

I have written about Marlo Thomas in a tone that was too sicky sweet.

Remember this?

So his father bought him a basketball

A badminton set, and that’s not all

A bag of marbles, a baseball glove

And all the things a boy would love

And Bill was good at every game

Enjoyed them all, but all the same

When Billy’s father praised his skill

“Can I please have a doll now,” said my friend Bill

I have written about a documentary that I saw last night where I confirmed that I am a racist. I left with my mind spinning and a greater sense of hopelessness than before. The post I almost finished made me sound like a reductionist asshole so I scrapped it. There was one good part about a cross’ armpit. I guess you need to read it.

I started describing the two books on habits that I am reading simultaneously and how they led me to delete all of the games from my phone. Goodbye candy crush, goodbye 2048 and my magnificent high score, goodbye clash of clans and paradise bay, goodbye Pet Rescue and Farm Heroes and that other farming game whose name I never learned. Goodbye time suck, and goodbye mini-breaks. Goodbye distractions good and bad. Forget the brilliant studies and inspirational descriptions that led to the demise of my games. Just know that they are gone, and so is my escape from my own brain, and the doctor’s waiting room, and the boys’ whining. I’m just going to have to find another way to detach. It is like physical withdrawal. But I have never read more New York Times headlines than I have in the past 48 hours. Which is both a good and a bad thing. I scrapped those games, which means I have to be a bit scrappy with my free time.

I scrapped the fifth sex post in as many weeks. It just gets boring. The writing I mean. Obviously.

I didn’t even leave the post I started about the IRS in the draft folder. It is totally gone. Summary: I won my 2012 audit, but the victory is short lived because the 2014 tax extension is crashing and burning.

All of this virtual wadded up paper brings to mind a video that my friend shared about privilege. I am totally sitting in the front row. But I have such bad aim that my paper ball may not make it into the recycling. Which means I can smooth it out and try again.

Please watch the video with your kids. So maybe there is a reason this post didn’t end up in the draft folder as well.