Baby Steps

I've had what an amateur, or me, might call writer's block for the last couple of days. I've sat in front of my laptop every night, fingers poised on the keys, staring at the blank screen. Nothing. Oh, I've typed some words. Then held the delete button down until they were gone. Stared. Typed other words. Repeat delete button action. Stared. Cycle those three things several dozen more times and you have the general idea. Even a trip out to dog beach yesterday didn't do the trick. We'd never been out there on a weekend day. Beautiful weekend day equals no parking, lots of kiddos, and a short leash. Not exactly the dog beach my pal and I had come to regard as our own private sanctuary. Oh well, one more night of staring and deleting wasn't gonna hurt anybody.

This morning, on the freeway of all places, it finally occurred to me that I haven't been able to write because my brain is consumed with two conversations I need to have. Well, more accurately, need to have and have been avoiding. I'm extraordinarily good at avoiding what I perceive to be a confrontation. It takes its toll on my overall well being, of course, but that's a small price to pay, right? I immediately began to "write" the first conversation in my head. Picked up the phone. Dialed the X's number. Nothing. Oh, I had plenty of words. Just not the ones I had planned to say. I could actually feel my brain holding down the imaginary delete button until all the meaningful words were gone. Coward was the only word I could think of for the rest of the afternoon.

Then Calm sent me this: Famous Writers on Overcoming Writers Block, and I was like, hell yeah, Ray Bradbury, you're right! I was attempting to write anything and everything except what I needed to write or in this case, say. So, I wrote conversation number one into an email, well, my part of the conversation anyway, and off it went. Oh, I'm still a coward. But, it's a start, right?