Blogity Blog Blog OR When it's the Attack of the Writer's Block from 50,000 Fathoms

It's been awhile since I ranted, er, blogged, so what shall I write about?


I have never understood what the eff the monolith was
until this moment.

I know.  Writer's block.  I have a nice outline all planned out.  I have characters prancing around in my head.  I have witty dialogue and titillating scenes.  Then when I sit down at the computer, I got nothing.

Nothing.  The big, fat, whomping zero.


I have lots of assistance.

Even when I've had an active case of insomnia, which does happen to me upon occasion and I happen to resemble a zombie (without makeup too!), I have been able to write.

So what do I do?  I Google it.  Because Bing and/or Google knows everything.  They're like omniscient Internet gods.  (I like the pictures on Bing but honestly I think the two are about the same otherwise.)  (Today's picture on Bing was a swimming duckling.  It was so cute I could have died.  But I still am blocked.)

People have lots of tips on breaking the psychosomatic problematic issue of writer's block.

1.  Write anything.  Write about nothing.  Write about your weird uncle who used to live down by the creek by the outhouse and ate nothing but kudzu and Moon Pies.  Write about your big toe.  (500 words on your big toe.  Just try it.)

2.  Read.  Read.  Read.  Today I was reading a book and I had to stop because this was the sentence I came to.  "She took hold of his big stalk and..."  I'm sure you can imagine where that was going.  It was obviously a romantically inclined scene with the Jolly Green Giant.  I had no idea.  So anyway, reading wasn't helping. 

3.  Change your environment.  I put up black drapes and started playing The Mikado.  Then I went outside and started weeding.  I hate weeding.  I couldn't find any unfinished novels out in the flower beds so I went back inside.  So instead I decided to run outside and see if anyone noticed if I went streaking.  Fortunately the police were not called.  (Pity.  I would have liked to see the inside of a Huntsville jail.  I'm sure that would do something for writer's block.)

4.  Research.  My research usually falls to Googling (or Binging, which actually sounds kind of lewd) odd drinks to make.  I found some new ones.  This one topped the list.  A Trickie Dickie Screwdriver, which I would think had something to do with Richard M. Nixon and/or Checkers.  But in actually is one part Jack Daniels, two parts purple Kool Aid and a jigger of formaldehyde from the jar Hitler's brain is kept in.  (That would be the hard part to obtain.)  Then I found a recipe for infusing gummy bears with vodka, which we have tried before, but it didn't really work that well.  (I would like to say that I did get smashed once from alcoholic gummies.)

5. Exercise.  Do something else.  Ask for help.  I glommed these together because I thought it was about the same thing.  We did go for a walk this morning and I tried to talk plot with HIM, the man to whom I'm married, but HIM immediately shut down.  I'm pretty sure it's the same to him as it is to me when he starts talking about his job.  "Rocket Science blah blah blah Missiles blah blah blah schematic arch of a trajectory blah blah blah."  Except HIM hears "Plot blah blah blah writing blah blah blah poopy head."

Anyway, so I wrote a blog instead.  Does this mean I don't have writer's block?  I will see tomorrow.

More on Having a Child OR Fat Woman Does Homework

Here's what I have learned upon becoming a mother.

1.) Never burp a baby without having a cloth over your shoulder.

2.) College funds do NOT create themselves magically.

3.) Kids will keep anything.  I mean, anything they get.  If you try to surreptitiously try to throw it away later, they will develop the ability to know what you've done and to the only toy/thing/item you've done it to.  (I also learned right now that I had to spell check surreptitiously three times.  My daughter just informed me that it has tit in the middle of it and then she giggled.)

4.) You get to re-learn math and English.  (I know a few moms and dads out there who only have little ones are going, "NOOOOOOOO!" right now, but it's true.  When you get that kid to the fourth grade, you'll be checking their homework or doing it with them, and you'll get to the part that says preposition and prepositional phrase and object of the preposition and you'll forget that you write books for a living and that you're supposed to know this stuff and how run-on sentences are poo-poo and that smart phones do have an Internet hook up so you can look this stuff up.

It was a good thing that the first paragraph of the homework sheet explained those terms to me.

Preposition: a word that connects a noun, pronoun, or phrase to other words.  In, of, over are examples of prepositions.  (They're also examples of words that Bill Clinton is still confused over.)

My definition of a preposition: A word that connects a noun, pronoun, or phrase to other words and drives me insane in the process.  It especially irks me when they ask the kid to identify TWO prepositions in the same sentence (because they put two in there) and then throw the kid in the water with the Great White Shark and absolutely no anti-shark spray.

Prepositional phrase: A phrase that begins with a preposition.  (This doesn't do you any good unless you know what a preposition is.)

My definition of a prepositional phrase: A phrase that begins with a preposition and makes the vein in your forehead pop.  (It's that throbbing vein that makes it so special.)  Examples include: to the store for Ben & Jerry's, to the asylum, and to the doctor for more valium.

Finally, we have the object of the preposition.  (Same problem.  If you don't know what a preposition is, you can't figure out what it's object is.  Or was.  Or has been.  That vein's starting to make Mount St. Helens look small.)

My definition of the object of the preposition: That thing that that other thing clarifies.  See?  Perfectly clear.  In the prepositional phrase to the store for Ben & Jerry's, it would be the store.  Crystally clear, right?  In to the asylum, the asylum would be the object, because that's where I'm going to need to go after helping my daughter with her homework.  And finally, the doctor to whom I must run for medicinal purposes is the object of the prepositional phrase.

Okay then.  English lesson is over.