Getting in Trouble

I love writing, almost as much as my coffee, but it sometimes gets me in trouble. Like every writer, I sometimes experience "mental constipation," otherwise known as "writer's block". No matter how I struggle to get past the mental obstacle, nothing moves for me; then, sometimes it moves at the most inoppertune times.


On one occasion, during the middle of the night, I tossed and turned as my hubby lay beside me, sleeping like a baby. One day, I was so close to the end of a story I could smell it, then fate reared its ugly head and I was slapped with a horrible case of writer's block. To be so close yet so far away to completion was doubly frustrating. Then, in the middle of night, the ending to the story hit me like a ton of bricks.

"That's it!" I screeched, jumping out of the bed and racing down the hall to my office. I swiched the monitor and began typing frantically as if I were possessed.

"Is that what you were screeching about?" I turned and saw a disgruntled John leaning in the doorway, yawning and running his hand through his hair. "I thought the house was on fire. Almost killed myself getting out of the bed. Half-jokingly--as jovial as one can be after being jerked awake--John offered me the option of coming back to bed or I could get the computer out of a tree the next morning; I took the first choice.

Something I sometimes do when I write a fictional story, is "talk out" the conversation between my characters. It sounds strange, but it enables me to hear how it will sound in the text.

First tme I did it, John eyed my warily, and spent the rest of the afternoon asking me how I felt. I have to admit, if I saw him walking around outside talking to himself and gesturing with his hands, I'd think he was nuttier than a fruit cake. I filled him in eventually, after he pampered me most of the day. Wicked, huh?

I've learned not to talk out my conversations around strangers. Again, I was stuck in a story; I thought the conversation was too stilted and had no idea how to fix it.

Then, there in the frozen food aisle in Wal-Mart, I suddenly knew what I wanted the characters to say. I never thought to check to see if anyone was sharing the aisle with me, and happily began spouting off the conversation.. I turned and saw an elderly lady staring at me strangely. Before I got a chance to explain, she gave me a deer-in-the-headlight look, whipped her cart around, and took off faster than a NASCAR driver leaving the pit row.

She must have told management, because a minute later, I heard the announcement over the speaker, "Security, scan aisle 1." It was the same aisle I was on, and I was the only one on it. I guess they though I was going to rip open a bag of Ora Ida french fries, pour them on the floor, roll in them while sing Crazy by Patsy Cline.

Maybe I should keep my conversations to myself.

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I'm borrowing this idea from Ms. Vicki. Sometimes you just want to know more about a person; something they have yet to divulge. If there's a questionn you want to ask, go ahead. I'll post the answer in the next entry.