Much Ado About Nothing

Two weeks.

It's been two weeks without a blog post. Two weeks of planning out pieces while I'm driving in the car, lying in bed, or stepping out of the shower. Two weeks of bringing those ideas to the computer only to lose my momentum or focus. Two weeks of feeling progressively more stressed at imaginary deadlines long overdue. Two weeks of avoiding other blogs because they just served to make me more anxious about this growing case of writer's block.

This happens quite often to the kids in my classroom. I'll walk by only to find them staring off into space with a wrinkled forehead.

"How's the writing coming along?" I'll ask.

Often, this question evokes a look of frustration upon their young faces. Writing workshop is the best part of the curricular day for at least half the kids in my classroom and to sit there for a long period of time without any hope of starting is worrisome.

"It looks like you don't have anything down," I'll say. "What's the problem?"

"My mind is stuffed up!"

"Stuffed up?" I ask.

"I can't think of anything to write about." they respond.

The beauty of this is that I can generally get them talking about something and within a few minutes they're busily scribbling down lines of description or dialogue or the like. We'll start with something they remember really well (perhaps a scary moment, a disappointing experience, or a happy memory)and I'll prompt them by saying "Yeah, but what if...". And soon they're imagining all kinds of new possibilities that could have happened and would make for a great story.

I can't do this. I'm the doctor that refuses to take his own advice. This is due, in part, because I don't like to write fiction pieces. I really don't even care for narrative pieces. They're not much fun to write. I much prefer essays. So I spend my week in search of the one crucial ingredient for any essay: a topic.

The topics don't need to be all that spectacular to inspire the writing. Over the past few months I've found a way to write entire pieces based on such inconsequential topics as Sky Mall magazine, silk boxers, losing an Othello game, coaching flag football, and backyard camping. Certainly not Earth-shattering material. Yet two weeks have come and gone without so much as a single publishable paragraph.

That's not to say I haven't started any pieces. There was some initial excitement over a piece I planned to title "Hell on Wheels." It was my intention to show the parallels that exist between spending an eternity in Hell and spending two hours at the Monster Truck Jam. Yet after just four or five paragraphs I had to pull the plug. Like so many Saturday Night Live skits, the concept was far more entertaining than the actual content.

There was another idea that initially sparked my interest. All alone on Kiawa Island last weekend, I wound up watching more national news programming than I've probably seen in the last year. While this really isn't saying much, a lot of what I did watch focused on the visit that Barrack Obama paid to the Republican Retreat in Maryland and the scandal surrounding John Edwards. I had this rough idea floating around in my head that I could write about the problematic nature of a two-party system - being that both sides are far more interested in seeing the other fail than working together to help the very people they have been elected to serve. Black eyes and verbal barbs seem to be more valuable than solutions. I thought I might write about the need for a third or fourth party of thought and action. But this seemed too far-reaching and burdensome. Not to mention, a genre of writing I'm not used to tackling.

With hope fading, there was one final opportunity to present itself to me.

Orange juice.

Every morning I have a glass of orange juice with my breakfast. While the brand we buy each week may differ based on price the one constant is that we always buy "no pulp." Well, "always" until last week. Last week Tricia bought a gallon of orange juice with "some pulp" because Ty said he likes it better. Likes it?

Even though I know there are plenty of them out there I find it hard to believe that people exist who prefer pulp in their orange juice. Tolerate it, maybe. But like it, I just can't see it! Who in their right mind would elect to have tiny limp shards floating around in their beverage? We have filters to prevent just this sort of thing!

Yet, this idea, again, took me nowhere. Another day wasted.

So here's hoping the coming week treats me well. Perhaps I'll watch more carefully and want to write about the girl in the bookstore who cried her poor eyes out because she just loved that little book that came with a stuffed animal so much that she had to have it despite her father's insistence that they weren't buying it. Maybe I'll listen more carefully and write about the student in my classroom who took one bite from her hamburger,looked up at me, and said "I can't believe my parents are paying for this!" Or maybe I'll think a little longer and harder and write about by latest idea to try to give away half of everything I own.

Let's hope something comes. If not, I'll have a repeat of this week.

Nothing to write about.