A zebra lands on this writer's block

(or How To Write A Longish Title And Stare Endlessly At A Blank Page)



BLANK. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Try as I might to wring up any creative juice from the left side of my brain (the so-called creative rim of my thoughtful existence whereupon my muse, er, my Lothario rests), but all I can squeeze is a sad title to succinctly capture my dilemma.

I’m consoled with the idea that my leftie is not unimaginative and dry, but simply slobbering in sloth and refusing to cooperate. Sigh.

There were times when my friends would gather around me, court my ire with a vile idea or simply solicit my opinion on just about anything, and words would leap out like stray dogs copulating on a free-for-all road trip orgy. Surely, there are moments when I’m incited to draw a comment and I can summon the lightest remark into a marmoreal epigram.

Not now.

Okay, I concede, I am a petulant writer. It takes more than a heave of depression or confetti of happiness to make me write. Capricious and indulgent, I am when I write.

For instance, as in this instance, I cannot pound straight to my computer, I write longhand. When the thoughts are laid on paper, the tedious task of transferring the written words into computer characters takes place. This is when the editing commences, or as I want to put it, when my manuscript is self-mitigated, mutilated and castrated. This process proves to be cost-effective. The eternal lull, the endless staring at the blank page, the heavy conversation with myself and the ceremonious consumption of bottomless Taster’s Choice coffee, they don’t feed on electricity.

Did I say I was fastidious? Just like my friend Jessica who has the penchant for writing on leather-masked paper or my mentor Rene O’s fondness for lined yellow pads, I can only write with one particular pen. It’s the Zebra J. Roller .07 MX.

My zebra, to date, has written three books, four or so columns, a number of articles, dissertations, autographs, profiles and reviews (but mostly musings).

It sounds tacky and cliché—this zebra has taken many a reader for a ride, you included, haha. This zebra has driven me from my dessert of ideas to the drought of my writer’s block.

Now, if only I can find something to write about…