The Block

I am very excited to say that following my post on The Big Issue, the Editor- Donald Paul- has asked me to write something for their December issue. I was completely flattered and chuffed as cheese that someone of importance wanted me to write something. My chest was a bit 'puffy' for a few hours after I accepted the task but has subsequently deflated. I fear that I may have contracted Writer's Block... or "the Block" as I will refer to it from now on.

I'm not quite sure what has caused The Block. It may be a lack of interesting things in my life of late. Could possibly be that. Or, it may be that I am over-analysing the things in my life so much that I fail to see importance in writing about them. I think, however, that the main reason for the Block is that I am now expected to write something, of 2,000 words or less, to submit by a certain date. My usual rambling style sees me writing about things that piss me off and things that make me think. These things arrive at various times of the day and week, not pandering to any sort of timing system. They just arrive. And then I write about them.

Right now, I have a deadline looming and I cannot, for the life of me, think of what to write about. I have a few ideas but have spent many hours driving over Kloof-neck, on my way to and from work, analysing these topics until they are literally so old that I have had to admit them to frail care. They aren't wrestling with me like my old topics did. These ones, the 'deadline topics', simply give up without a fight. They sit on their asses, cross their arms and say "Ok. You win. We are pathetic. Take us now to the place where bad ideas go to die". This is not good for a young writer who is to make her debut in a publication in a few days time.

Where is the shop, the place, the market where bouncy new topics wait patiently for writers to wrestle them to the ground, wrap them in words and present them on a page? Which street in the map would I find them? Do they hide behind trees and wait for you to walk past so that they can give you a fright and then collapse in a heap of giggles? Do they sit on shelves, swinging their legs and play 'eye-spy' while they wait? Do they kill time waiting for writers to find them by taking flowers to the geriatric topics who are on bed rest in frail care?

I wish I knew. For now, I am getting a stiff neck from looking around all the time for something to interest me enough to write about it. Being a proper writer is hard. I don't want to be a grown-up anymore.