BLAH!

It is the worse enemy of the writer. It can turn a writer's calm demeanor into the persona of a maniac. The more he tries to get away from it, the more it jumps all over him. Its tentacles can reach as deep as the heart and rip it right out.

Whatever could I be talking about?

Writer's Block...of course.

THE BLANK PAGE

I had taken a kind of sabbatical...from everyone. The drama surrounding Kos's trip, the uncertainty of the future, and my sister's unsupposedness was just too much. With so mach pain within me with no outlet, I felt the best way to deal with any of it would be writing it out.

All I had for my attempt was the blank page.

I ran my hand through my hair. This shouldn't be that hard. My mind was constantly thinking of new ideas. So I started on a new column. It would explain all that had happened with Kos.

When I got to the part about our trip to LA, I sighted in frustration. My doubts kicked in. Couldn't' I be more descriptive? Did that occur that way? Why doesn't this flow better? I suck as a writer.

I put the column away. I decided to work on ALTERNATE SPIN. All year I produced new stories for its fifth season. All year I posted it in a timely fashion, which awed several other SLIDERS fanfic writers.

Now I had two stories left...the two-parted season finale. Not only did this finale had to resolve the character arcs I introduced this season, this finale also had to resolve a major plot thread for the show. It had to be epic and worth the buildup on the show and in my fanfic over the last four years. I had been looking to this since the beginning of the season with childlike glee.

I frowned at page 7 of Part One. It was dued to be posted that week. I could not hear my characters. I had not one word from them on what I should write.

Doubts shot through my mind again. Was this character-driven or plot-driven? Was this epic enough? Not enough action...isn't that bad? This season will end on a whimper. I suck as a writer.

All I could think about that day was Kos. As I sat and attempted to write, Kos was in New York. He was in a security line waiting to be checked out. Then he was on his way back to Russia. For all intends and purpose, I may not see him again. And he still hadn't called.

I grabbed my stuff and stormed out of the Other Side coffeehouse. My mind just wasn't into it. So the pages...continued to stay blank.

BLAH!

So there I was. As usual, I was at Hotel S...being the good little front desk agent. Truth be told my heart wasn't in it.

Today's complaints had to do with the lobby computers. They were in the process of being rebooted. The tech would take one modem at a time and reboot them.

Given his busy schedule, it took months. In the months since his last visit, the only rebooted computer ran too slow for tenants' taste. Meanwhile the other nonbooted computers constantly froze up, taking out one completely. It didn't help that tenants themselves were downloading things they shouldn't.

Now with only two computers, tenants constantly came to me with two complaints. One was that the rebooted computer was too slow which I couldn't do anything about. The other was that the nonrebooted computer had frozen up and the previous person had locked people out which I could fix, but get annoyed after attempt number 567. It was like the tenants thought I was management and do something...which was true. And I had gotten tired of that. Where was people's common sense?

Into all of this came Barsuk. He was one of the tenants at Hotel S. He was from the former Yugoslavia and was in the process of losing weight. We bonded over the fact that I wanted to start working out again. Lately, Barsuk had been pushing me to do just that.

That day Barsuk was doing his song and dance about going. He saw I was kinda off and I mentioned graduation. So he asked if I really had a degree. Then he asked me the question that all post-grads get asked once in their life:

'If you have a degree, why are you working here?'

I got a bitter grin on my face. I leaned back in the chair. I looked at him.

'Good question," I replied dead-pan.

DON'T WANTA

Barsuk's question haunted me. In fact, it haunted me so much I did something I hadn't did in months. After I got out of the shower, I did pushups. Later on that day, I went and check on the gym he been pushing me to go to.

Even later, I finished up a bit more of the first part of the AS finale. Since I continued to be blocked on the column front, I started writing current journal entries on the site. It was while I was doing that it occurred to me to go back to LA to do more research on possible apartments. So I plan a return trip.

I then thought...I cannot seem to finish my column on Kos? Well I should write another one.

So I did.

And just like that, I got what I've been needing. I got direction. Where it would go, I don't know. However, I'm on the move. Look out!!

Diego



 

Back to 2007