Say…Anything!

I got nothin’.

That’s not true.  I have fifteen thousand ideas swirling around in my head.  (Think I’m kidding?  I’m not.)  I have dozens – maybe hundreds – of untold stories just waiting for the opportunity to be warmed by the light of the laptop screen.  I even have about sixteen started drafts waiting to be plucked from oblivion and given their chance.  So why can’t I write something?

Can’t be writer’s block – one must first qualify as a writer in order to have this thing called “writer’s block.”  And really, I don’t think I qualify.  Although, I do think I have the visual requirements down…

Hair too distracting and so haphazardly stashed on top of head in a rather unfortunate arrangement that Fabulous Husband secretly finds cuter than my attempts to intentionally look cute.  Check.  I think I even have a pencil stashed up there.  (I hope that’s a pencil…)  Check.

Glasses perched appropriately on face in an attempt to both read the darn screen and make me feel studious and writer-ish.  Check.  Glasses scratched and filthy to the point that reading is actually impossible, thus making me look out over the top of them like some stereotypical schoolmarm.  Check.  (This drives Fabulous Husband crazy…he cleans his glasses like once every ten minutes with these persnickety little eyeglass cleaners that stink like crazy; I clean my glasses like once a decade.  Maybe.

Current favorite sweater (complete with requisite hole) situated on physical self partly for warmth, partly for inspiration.  Check.  (Insert welcome distraction: Should I sew that hole?  Nah.)

Overabundance of cats curled up in various locations around the room.  (Three really is too many…whose idea was this?)  Check, check, and check.  And not one of them is doing anything to provide inspiration.  Useless little loafers.

Very old coffee positioned handily nearby.  (No wonder I don’t sleep.)  Check.

I have always held to the theory that if you can’t think of anything to write, perhaps the best option is to write anything…the lyrics to a song, your name, what you had for breakfast, or a musing on the fact that you can’t write a darn thing.  Something about the act of putting pen to paper (or finger to keys) and refusing to accept the apparent lack of inspiration forces the brain juices to pour forth, magic happens, and suddenly there is an idea.

Guess what?  It works!  Who knew?

So now I have an idea.

The reason I can’t write?  I have too much.  I have fifteen thousand ideas swirling around in my head and dozens or hundreds of untold stories waiting to be told.  I even have a bunch of drafts to prove it.  The problem is – as it is for me in many situations – that there is simply too much to choose from and the task at hand becomes daunting.  When that happens, the cowardliest easiest approach is to just opt out completely and cry fail.

Ray Bradbury said, “you only fail if you stop writing.”  (See?  My theory may have something to it after all.)  So it becomes a matter of choice.  Do I allow this task to get the best of me and throw in the proverbial towel?  Or do I put on my gloves and go in for another round?

Yeah, that one.

And so I will choose to believe Fabulous but Exhausted Husband when he stumbles past me on his way to bed and tells me I’m a Fantastic Writer and…I will write.

But not tonight.

Sorry.  (No, I’m not.)

Tonight I leave you with the late night musings of an overwhelmingly inspired and as yet unfocused…writer.  (Did I just dare to say that?)

I have to go now and sort through a few of those drafts.