The Dead Spot

So now there is a dead spot. I write often in bursts and, when I finish a piece, I often crave to do more, particularly if I am working in longhand. Typing is harder. Typing now usually makes the knuckles ache.

But the words disappear. It is as if my batteries completely discharge and can no longer cold crank the engine.

The writing hobby is a tough game. You're not working to assignment. You can't find out new facts to stimulate you, much of the time, because you often cannot know what you are writing about until you see what you say, and, essentially, it is all about you and nothing else.

I laugh up my sleeve at so many political bloggers who make a special category titled something like: Me! Me! Me!. Would they make a special category titled You! You! You! or Oprah! Oprah! Oprah!? I have to bite my tongue to keep from telling them to get a life, to sit down and face the fact that you ain't much, but you're all you got.

"You" is sometimes a blank slate. "You" sometimes simply has nothing to say. "You" often knows that you just don't know Jack.

But you keep on writing anyway, pencil to paper, letter after letter, the hand automatically dropping the marks without conscious control of the order, without the brain spelling out all the letters to itself. You think "happenstance" and automatically the marks appear--even if they are frequently the wrong marks.

Even if wrong, the process is automatic. And when age and distraction interfere--which is fairly frequently now for me--you never even see the moment of interference. Letters vanish or transpose themselves, and whole words you didn't think of appear in the copy as substitutes for the ones you did.

Add to this the fact that Blogger spellcheck will sometimes randomly turn two or three words in a row into letter salad, and proofreading these posts becomes the Road to High Adventure.

So saddle up your camels and follow.