LET'S FACE IT. Writer's block is here to stay. There is really nothing we can do to dump it off permanently. On second thought, maybe we can. But first, somebody (preferably a genius) needs to discover a way to convert it into tangible matter. Having accomplished that, eliminating it would be fairly easy. The next time North Korea decide to launch rockets indiscriminately, we can just ask them (politely of course) to strap that converted mass into one of their missiles' nuclear warhead. Then they can blast it off to kingdom come, for all I care. The target doesn't matter; they're used to having their own way anyway. UN might be a-screamin' and a-thumpin' with rage but at least, writers all over the world will definitely be a-jumpin' and a-cheerin' and a-dancin' and a-singin'.
But I digress.
I was having a bad---no, terrible---day yesterday. And yes, that great canker in our midst, Mr. Writersblock himself, was mostly to blame. I was supposed to write the first draft of the first chapter of my first novel project but I found out I could not. I tried practically everything (from playing a Vivaldi music on the background to dancing Macarena with my feet in the air) to help me awaken my hypersomniac muse but to no avail. She just slumbered on, leaving me alone and trembling in front of a daunting sea of whiteness, its vast expanse blemished only by a single dot and an eternally annoying and blinking cursor. To add to my misery, my errant PC acted up on me and suddenly decided to shit---I mean, shut---itself down without getting the clearance first, so to speak.
Being the daydreamer that I am, my mind slowly conjured up a scene related to the incident above:
TIME: exactly 3 minutes and 23 seconds before the above incident.
LOCATION: a small square room devoid of any aesthetic decorations. Cheap second-hand paperbacks and used clothes are artfully strewn across the floor.
CHARACTERS: ME, a heretofore unknown writer genius; PC, a battered computer with an independent streak
ACT I, SCENE 1
Writer genius is sitting on a wooden chair facing a slightly battered desktop computer laid on an equally battered computer table. Writer has been sitting there for nearly an hour doing nothing
PC: You're creeping me out, dude. According to my built-in clock, you've been sitting there for 46 minutes, 35 seconds and 21 nanoseconds and all you do is stare at me blankly.
ME: ...
PC: Are you high or somethin'?
ME: ...
*monitor shakes itself sideways*
PC: Tsk, Tsk. Darn, you're pretty stoned, huh?
ME: ...
PC: Right. I'm getting the shakes now. I'm out!
*One short bleep and monitor goes black*
ME: ...
Another short bleep ended my reverie. It also signaled my errant PC's resurrection.
I hastily opened up Word again a few minutes later. I breathed a long and deep sigh. Luckily for me, my PC's uncalled-for behavior did not ruin my manuscript; MS Word's auto-save function had kicked in and saved the day. My manuscript was intact. The single dot was still there.
