Writer’s block is a funny thing. It leads you to some pretty murky waters.
For instance, I recently read of a Florida man who was fixing his motorcycle on the deck of his home when the engine suddenly developed a mind of its own and dragged the hapless fellow through his glass patio door. His wife promptly called 9-1-1 and off said man went to the hospital. The woman was left to clean the mess made by the motorcycle now lying in her dining room. She mopped the gasoline that had spilled out over the floor and threw the resulting liquid into the toilet.
When her patched-up husband returned home his nerves were so shot that he proceeded to have a cigarette as he did his business on the toilet. The resulting boom when he threw the match into the toilet drew his wife immediately. Once again she called emergency services while the fellow writhed in pain from the burns on his buttocks and groin.
Surprised to be called to the same home for the same patient, the ambulance attendants on the way down the property’s steep incline asked the wife what had happened. When she laid out the sad story, one of the attendants laughed so hard he tipped the poor patient out on his concrete steps, whereupon he broke his left arm. Now that puts luckless in a whole new perspective. And the worst part is that my initial thought on reading this story was: why couldn’t that have been me? At least I’d have something to write about in my column this week.
Apparently I’m not the only one who sometimes suffers from a crucial lack of words and ideas. At this past weekend’s Writers Festival, author Louise Penny confessed to a five-year spell of writer’s block when she quit her job at CBC to write the novel that had been her dream since the age of eight. She regaled us with quips about meeting well-meaning folks on the street who asked her how the great Canadian novel was coming. “Fine,” she would reply charmingly, thinking all along of a not-so-charming expletive.
Finally one day, she realized that instead of a literary tome to end all literary tomes, she would be better off writing in a genre she enjoyed reading. And before you could say presto, she was busy inventing mysteries and a detective many compare to Agatha Christie’s Poirot. And now she’s a best seller worldwide, so obviously those five years were well spent.
When you write for a community newspaper with a weekly deadline, you never have the luxury of an extra day of writer’s block, never mind five years. So consequently, many times, we end up writing about that which we know — family, friends and community.
So now I have family who have disowned me, friends who don’t speak to me and a community that sometimes calls for my head on a platter.
But, oh well, at least my buttocks survive unscathed.
