Beyond TV Safety

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Writer's Blockade

There is writer's block and then there is writer's blockade, the former being annoying the latter being downright dangerous. You're blockaded when part of your mind decides to lock itself away and refuse to work with the rest. You hear a little voice in your head, distorted as if coming through a bullhorn, refusing to permit access to the creativity complex.
So how can you overcome writer's blockade? The only known way is through mind-altering compounds. Chocolate is my favorite legal choice but a mixture of newly prescribed medications plus a variety of chemical changes due to a new diet are much more effective.
In trying to write this very article, I couldn't concentrate on the writing. I stared at the monitor for an hour then turned on the TV to have some background noise. Figuring the Cartoon Network would not have anything on that I wanted to watch, I turned to it and found some utterly stupid SCRAPPY DOO cartoon on. I start to work on the article again and find that the blockaded part of my mind is still fixated on the TV and rather than typing the text of the article, I find myself typing the dialogue from the TV show. "I bet they have Uncle Scooby up on the second floor."
Realizing that I was not going to win, I decided to just sit and watch the TV for awhile. I cannot bring myself to the mental challenge of a reasonable TV channel so I find an episode of THE BRADY BUNCH and become totally engrossed in it. After the episode is over I am totally exhausted by the drama (huh?!) and fall asleep. I have a strangely vivid dream about being 14 again and in the Brady house, vacant except for Jan who I thoroughly enjoyed having sex with. The whole time I was thinking, "Wow—I'm doing it in the Brady House." When I woke up I knew that I was in trouble because I hadn't had dirty Jan dreams for more than 20 years. Writing for EX had reduced me to being an adolescent again. I decided to give up for the night and sleep.
In the morning, I heard the sound of cars passing by my bedroom window, tires making that swishing sound heard when they pass through water. I also hear a dripping sound, which I thought was outside. As I gradually woke up I realized that the drip was in the same room and near what I refer to as my "bed". I looked around and the ceiling was indeed dripping from one spot and it was landing right on the sketches I had done the week before, the only sketches I had since I burned my last sketchbooks in Japan. (I never look at old sketches as they depress me when I realize that not only am I a terrible artist but that I haven't improved at all.)
The water coming from the ceiling was a washed out yellow so now it looked like I had urinated on all my sketches. I was going to send them to the character designer I want to work with on a TV series proposal and I am sure he would be very unhappy should I hand him seemingly urine-stained drawings. Better yet would be if I had to take them into a pitch meeting with sponsors and producers.

Me: "Uh. that isn't urine."

All I can do it lay out some of the drawings to dry (with faux urine stains) and throw the rest away. This depresses me, and at this point my mind forgets about writing the article completely.
In the tradition of lots of great people, I decide to try and write the article in free time at work. Of course, that week there is no free time at work and I get home very late every night, too tired to even turn on the computer, much less write.
Then I get an eyelash stuck back in my eye and can't get it out so I have to take out my contact and try to flush it out. This, of course, doesn't work and I spend a few hours squeezing my eye, blowing my nose and generally being miserable. I can't type because I can't see so I stare off into space trying to think of what I will write but I start thinking of other things and forget that I was writing in the first place.
I suddenly get inspired—probably by the rush of eating lunch—and attack the article with new vigor. This vigor lasts until I must rush to the bathroom to destroy some more sketches, if you know what I mean. Turns out that all the drains in the place are clogged up and flushing the toilets makes them overflow. I end up having to run out of the house and go behind the garage. I think of Jan.
Eventually, I steal more time at work and just finish the article—weeks late and with a quality level that can only be described as pitiful. Then I send it off to Charles and mysteriously it appears in the new EX issue, better than I remembered it. I never know when the issues are done. I find out by people e-mailing me saying either, "I read your article and it was... out there" or "I read your article. Are you OK?" In the case of my year-end prediction articles with Kero-chan, Jim Morrison and friends, it is usually, "What are you on?"
And speaking of the year-end article. (See, I'm thinking ahead now, Charles!) Choosing the guest entities for the year-end article is always very difficult. I have decided to include one guest entity that the EX readers choose this year. Pick a fictional character from anime or anything else, a real person (preferably dead) or whatever you want and e-mail your choice to EX. If nobody sends in any ideas it's going to be Jan.