One Page, and More

This started out as a jejune little rant against the synopsis, an idea for a post which hit me last night on my train ride home and has not aged well. One of the cardinal rules I have developed for myself when writing: if it started out feeling good and feels bad around the middle of the story, then that's just your inner critic setting up shop; but if the first few paragraphs are like pulling teeth, it either isn't ripe or was ripe last week. So I curtailed that, and I think that on some level, you're thanking me for it.

This may sound like a cop out, but I think today might be one of the days that the best thing I can do for my writing is to not try to write anything.

Okay, that definitely sounded like a cop out. The truth is, it's hard to tell the difference between writer's block and burnout (especially since a lot of times the latter is a subset of the former). For all that John Q. Cultural Stereotype likes to claim that writing is easy, it's really not (I won't get deeper into it than that), and sometimes, what feels like writer's block is really just your brain telling you that you need a break.

This is a dangerous edge to walk on: after all, how long is a break?

For me, that answer is simple--it lasts until I feel bad about it going on, which is usually about three days. Then I'll try to write, and I will find myself thrown up against that big, inky wall in my head again; and I'll try to push through, and I'll try to push through, and then I'll slump and I'll sigh, and I'll go over and I'll write a blog post about how I can't seem to write right now, swear words optional.

At which point, I will have a sudden surge of inspiration and write something that feels like cocaine for my hands; something that sets all the machinery in motion and leaves me feeling like I'm behind the wheel of something huge and powerful and older than the stars, something that leaves behind tread marks that will leave people gossiping and trading photographs for years. I will look down at that story and the words will sear themselves into the meat of my brain, and I will say, probably in another blog post, some variant on the words: "This is why I'm a writer."

You think I'm mocking myself, but really, this is how things play out in my world. It's not quite like clockwork, from what I can tell, but it is regular enough that I almost count on it; it's only some semblance of sanity and a desire to be more rational than the worlds I create that keeps me from running over and bemoaning my lot on the Internet every time things are flowing a little roughly. Hey, previous writers used heroin and absinthe.

So, to make a long story short, I don't have something deeper or more insightful for you this week. I won't wave excuses, nor will I self-flagellate; it's just not how I do things. However, I said I would aim for Thursday, and without greater waves of inspiration in my mental forecast, I felt that something was better than nothing. Provided that said something is not also nothing.

But I will take a little break tonight, and perhaps tomorrow and this weekend; and maybe come Monday there will be a trickle of ideas. Or maybe I'll get a total downpour on Saturday and spend the entire thing inside, blinds drawn and a beer in my hand as I pound out words and beg my brain to stop. It's happened before; maybe I'll get lucky and it'll happen again. For now, though, it is almost no longer Thursday, and so rather than be late, I bid you all goodnight. Goodnight.