GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #186: THE WRITER'S BLUES

This is the beginning of week two of me not writing anything worth a damn. Or at all. That doesn't happen to me often. I know, I feel like one of those guys who can't get it up for the night and try that lame ol' excuse, but in this case it's true. I might write 2,000 words in a day, and at the very least 500 of them will be worthwhile.


Last week: nothing. A few sentences, all of it shit. When I try to move on to something else, I get the same result. Shit. It's getting to the point where I don't even want to call myself a writer.


I've got a great idea for a story, except I don't have a story. I have a situation. I have characters. But I don't have a story, and that's pretty fucking important. It's also a pretty timely idea, what with all of the gun violence that is getting coverage these days. It's like we're living in the Wild West again. Granted, I'm a huge fan of westerns, but I'd rather not actually live one. (Unless it's at the Wild West Show in Union, IL. I love that place.)


But no story. So I can't do it justice.


I tried a couple of other projects. Nothing. There's a book that was going to be published at a company that went out of business before they could put it out there, and I've been thinking of doing it at Riot Forge mostly because it's, uh, a romantic crime story, and no one knows what that means. But I look at it, and I can't make any sense of it.


I also had a good idea as to how I can bring back my vampire book from the grave (ha ha), but I'm still not getting any signals from the lizard portions of my stupid brain.


A week of nothing but shit writing work from me. What caused this? Well, it's not hard to figure out. One week ago I began my new job. It is taking up my entire life right now. I'm trying to cram insanely technical facts into my head because I know that very soon I'm going to have to use them, and I won't have a lot of time to hunt and search for them on a shared drive. I'll need them immediately to deal with customers and carriers alike.


I always say that the only thing worse than working is not working. This is true. I lusted after this job, and now that I've gotten it, it is giving me headaches.


Fear not. I will get over this. When that day comes I will no longer be wallowing in this pit of writing despair. When I get a grip on this madness I will conquer it and get back to writing fucked up things that got me fired from my previous job like DONG OF FRANKENSTEIN and POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS. Or possibly "Attitude Adjustment," my statement on the horrors of the PC office. But probably not that last one. I doubt my HR department read it. It doesn't have the same ring as DONG OF FRANKENSTEIN or POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS.


I know I won't get back my writing abilities until I finally fit my round peg into this job's round hole, but that won't stop me from trying, even though I just got two rejection letters today. Fuck.