Writers Block

Last week a friend sent me a Christmas card that read: "Did I see that you had three books published this past year? Don't you ever suffer from writer's block?"

In short: no. Never.

Truth be told, I've been churning out drivel since I was ten years old. In my closet, I've got notebooks filled with ideas for stories, novels, essays . . . . It's been years since I've tapped these ideas, however, since I'll never get around to needing them.

Sure, there have been many times when a story has stalled, but if that happens, I just stop writing on that piece and move onto something else (or, in my case, click on another file, another novel, another essay, or I begin something new entirely). There have been times when I've tried to write a piece, say, with a certain tone or tenor, but I couldn't get into the drama. No problem, I just start writing something that strikes my mood at the moment, be it humor, poignant, or idiotic.

Just looking back on the past seventeen days, I've turned out the following (and not always in a steady flow, but often working on several of these at once):

* Two travel articles about non-Napa valley California boutique wineries

* The initial stirrings of a new book proposal to be entitled: The Seven Deadly Virtues

* A reworking of a science fiction story about a viral disease carried by the common house fly

* Scads of limericks; a peck of poems; a rickshaw full of rhymes

* At least a dozen letters to editors pitching other essays I'd like to offer to their magazines

* At least a half dozen emails to editors pitching other book proposals I'd like to offer

* This blog each morning

* Three humorous essays, each of which I turned out in thirty minutes flat, and which are some of the funniest crap I've written in decades

* Sermons, newsletter articles, Post-it notes, business letters, Christmas cards & handwritten love letters to Becky (which she receives DAILY).

Okay, so maybe I do get writer's block when it comes to writing love . . . but Becky doesn't care. She gets to read all of my other stuff. And that should be enough for any woman.