Writimus Blockosis

Sometimes writers experience a phenomenon called “writer’s block.” This is when a big block of wood or concrete is inserted into a writer’s head where his/her brain would normally be.
When that occurs, all creativity comes to an abrupt, airbag-deploying halt. Other than the sudden loss of creativity, all other mind and bodily functions continue to operate normally. The only thing more frustrating to a writer than a blank computer screen is an even blanker ________ (my writer’s block prevented me from completing that sentence.)
I’ve been told that there is nothing worse than being around a writer suffering from writer’s block. Lady Debby is usually quick to pick up the subtle signs of my writer’s block. She barely bats an eye when a thesaurus flies across the room. She’ll just shrug her shoulders when a laptop, for no apparent reason, becomes a projectile, and makes hard contact with an unforgiving wall. She has come to consider these “episodes” acceptable compensation for the privilege of being married to such a famous and prolific writer like myself. Hey, my creativity is back!
Dang, it just left again.
Because writers know they can be stricken at any time with a debilitating case of writer’s block, they always maintain an “idea box.” This is a collection of writing ideas, unfinished writing projects, motivational quotes, plus a few rejection letters from publishers, which the writer (for strictly therapeutic reasons) writes colorful responses to, then wisely chooses not to mail the “modified” version of the rejection letters back to said publishers.
If you were to gain access to a writer’s idea box, you would see what to the untrained eye appears to be just scraps of paper (various sizes, colors, textures, and scents), receipts, used envelopes, Post-it notes, napkins, and bathroom tissue (typically 2-ply to reduce ink bleed-through. I made the mistake one time of using red ink on 1-ply bathroom tissue. Several months later, while frantically searching my idea box for an idea, I came across what appeared to be a bloody tissue. And I began wondering, when did I get a bloody nose, and why did I save the evidence in my idea box?).
Usually a writer will sit down at his/her desk and try to come up with writing ideas. A writer assumes that since they are able to create literary masterpieces when sitting at their writing desk, pounding out a few simple writing ideas would be a slam-dunk. But more often than not, when you raise the idea bucket from the creative well, it’s not overflowing with ideas. If you’re lucky, there may be a single idea droplet at the bottom of the bucket, but it usually evaporates before you’re able to transfer it to paper.
Writing ideas are notorious for their bad timing. They never show up when you want them to. They prefer to drop in when you are least prepared to receive them. But you can’t ask them to come back at a more opportune time because ideas (like all creative things) are uber-sensitive and they will pout. They want you to drop everything you’re doing and beg them not to leave.
Let’s say you’re at a restaurant and you’re looking at a menu. There are lots of burger choices including a vegiburger. And you think… “I wonder if someone ever ordered a vegiburger but was served a real burger by mistake. What if you were to add a little real burger in with a vegiburger…” Then all of a sudden, an asteroid-size idea falls from the sky, through the roof of the restaurant, and lands on your head.
You know what you need to do. You’ve read the statistics. “If an asteroid-size idea falls on your head and you don’t write it down within 27 seconds of impact, 95% of the idea will disappear from your memory, but the remaining 5% will haunt you ‘til you reach your past pull date.”
So you frantically search for something to write the idea on. You grab the napkin currently protecting your utensils from the poorly wiped table. Now you need something to write with. Your only options within reach are bottles of condiments. In desperation, you grab the knife from the table and are about to start carving the idea on your arm, when you suddenly hear this angelic voice from heaven, “You gonna order or eat your arm”? You look up. It’s the waitress. And she’s holding a pen.
Everything gets a little fuzzy after that. You remember hearing shouting, immediately followed by some sort of scuffle that left teeth marks. But even as you were being escorted out of the restaurant, you couldn’t help but wear a big asteroid-size grin on your face. Because in your hand is a napkin inscribed with an idea so stupendous, that every other idea in your idea box will start referring to it as the “King Napkin Idea” (coming from a box of creative ideas, I would have expected a more…creative name). The King Napkin Idea is:
“Book idea—vegan protagonist suspects that the mob (in cahoots with a powerful meat-packing union) is forcing vegetarian food manufacturers to use animal meat as filler in tofu.”
Now when I use the term “idea box,” I don’t mean an actual container. Most writers don’t keep their ideas boxed up in…a box. They give their written ideas the freedom to explore their own creative individuality by letting them choose their own place to grow as an idea. If you enter a writer’s space, you will find scraps of paper, receipts, Post-it notes, envelopes, napkins, and bathroom tissue in drawers, on walls, on desktops, on computer screens, on cups, on lamps, and on sedentary domestic animals. You will find them everywhere except in the box labeled Writing Ideas.
So when a writer is stricken with writer’s block, as I am now, all he/she has to do is start sifting through all of the ideas that at the time seemed good enough to write down, but not good enough to write about. This is what is commonly referred to as the seed stage (actually, I’ve never heard it referred to in this way, but it makes it sound like I know what I’m talking about). The creative process is very similar to the germination process.
Let’s say you decide to plant zucchini. I don’t know why any sane person would choose to grow zucchini, but for this analogy, any seed will do. So you go to a seed store and buy a package of zucchini seeds. But since you can’t plant them until spring, you stick the package of seeds in a drawer. What is a seed? A seed is an embryo and stored food. So what you really have is a package of zucchini embryos.
So the things written down on those scraps of paper, receipts, post-it notes, envelopes, napkins, and bathroom tissue are not just ideas. They’re creative embryos. If you’re a writer, the next time someone enters your domain and makes some lame comment about the clutter, you can tell them proudly that you have hundreds of creative ideas, each in the embryonic stage of development. You don’t have to explain the fact that most, if not all, of your creative ideas have been in that same embryonic stage for so long, they’re barren, which is a polite word for saying they’re infertile and will never develop into anything more.
Germination. So now it’s spring and it’s time to plant your zucchini embryos. So you do all the right things. You dig a hole deep enough, you use healthy soil, and you keep the soil moist but not soggy. Then eventually (but not always) a root emerges from the seed (now a seedling) and starts relying on external food sources to grow.
So the germination process in writing is to take an idea and try to develop it. Let’s use the King Napkin Idea as an example. You’ll need to develop a storyline and characters. What type of novel will this be? A murder mystery? Does some unsuspecting vegan discover a human finger in his/her Thanksgiving Tofurkey? Does the mob discover the vegan protagonist searching for evidence in a meat-packing plant and torture him by forcing him to eat genuine hamburger meat from beef cows as opposed to non-genuine hamburger meat from soy cows?
There is something called a germination rate, which is basically the percentage of planted seeds that germinate from the total number of seeds planted. Let’s say you plant 100 zucchini seeds and you get 70 zucchini plants. The germination rate is 70%. If you’re a fan of zucchini, that’s a good germination rate. If you’re not a big fan of zucchini, or its offspring (zucchini bread), then 70% is a very bad germination rate. As much as it pains me to admit it, a zucchini has a far better germination rate than my writing ideas. Matter of fact, just about every variety of summer squash has a better germination rate.
But when you’re suffering from a severe case of Writimus Blockosis like I am, you have no alternative but to reach out in desperation and grab the nearest embryonic lifeline. A defibrillator aimed at resuscitating your flatlined creativity. And all it takes is just one idea….like the one on this crumpled-up piece of stationary. This one idea could be the cure. This one idea could turn into one of the greatest columns I’ve ever written. Perhaps even the greatest column ever written by anyone since the invention of …columns. The idea is… Wait, this isn’t an idea…
Dear Mr. Twede,
Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, your treatment, titled “The Vegan Detective,” is not something we are interested in pursuing at this time. We found the premise to be in very poor taste. Good luck in all your future writing endeavors.
Regards,
Palmer Gottlieb
Assistant Editor
Nadachance Publishing
Dear Mr. Gottleib,
BITE ME!!!
Regards,
Dustin Twede
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Check out L. Dustin Twede’s website at www.ldustintwede.com. He can be reached at ddtwede@yahoo.com.