Writing Agony

Some days writing is like giving birth! Nothing comes closer to the agony of trying to fit a million little pieces of colourful and colourless green and white and blue and red and purple unrelated words; independent words, into an orderly, progressive and compelling message. NOTHING. Absolutely, bloody nothing.

You sit and you stare at the page, the keyboard, out the window. You go for a walk, you come back. You sit down. You crack your knuckles before touching the keyboard in an act of ritualistic sacrifice and prepration. The keyboard remains silent. You glare at it as if it would suddenly jump to attention and satisfy the growing frustration in the middle of your brain. Something there wiggling and making you so uncomfortable you can’t sit down any longer.

Up again, you run down the stairs and then back up. You make a cup of tea and let it grow cold as you run back downstairs to fill the sugar canister and the sugar bowl and then decide it is coffee you need after all. So you pull down the coffee maker and search for the filters and coffee. Darn, you are almost out of coffee and will have to open the sealed bag of Vittoria special grind Arabica beans espresso. That on the brew you return to your keyboard.

Music to Sooth the Beast

No. you need music. Yes, that is it! Handle, Suite in G Minor or Rosinni William Tell overture. So lovely. And as the violin bow moves so gently it begins -- the flow of words, softly dripping off your hands and you smile to yourself at the sheer beauty and power of little black letters on the white screen.

Yes, yes, yes!!! Better than….well you know.

More perfect words! You know this is a GOOD space, finally!

And the phone rings!

You do not answer it, but it unhinges your for a moment. Then you smell the coffee drawing your thoughts back down those 20 stairs to the kitchen. Will you go now or let it turn to mud as you couple with this process of writing? A difficult decision actually, even though you decided to drink the tepid tea in the meantime because you know in your heart you NEED the coffee.

And the overture is building and strengthening, the brass is coming to a great conclusion and well you have no choice you get up. The smell of coffee has defeated you.

You push away from the keyboard as the white that remains on the screen begins to relentless accuse you. You remove your headphones regretting leaving the music, wishing the cord would reach all the way down the stairs, but it wont.

And with steely determination, you move away from your desk and down the mahogany brown steps to the kitchen. You sail to the coffee maker and check to see if the little bell has told you you can now have a cup.

This Pavlovian control is frustrating if you have miss-timed your trip down the stairs. You may have to wait for up to four minutes and minutes are growing more precious as your brain keeps spewing words, one after another, in the continual out flowing of these moments that won’t come again. You wish you had paper and pen with you as you pace and wait for the little bell, but you don’t.

And if you leave you know the bell will again call you back to the kitchen with a contrived timing that is only designed to make you go spare (Aussie for a bit nutty).

So you stand there accusing the coffee maker of stalling. You pace back and forth in time to the last piece of music that was playing in your head….Robin Hood overture (I forgot he has an overture) and you enjoy trying to reformulate the harmonies and intricacies. And rooted to the spot at the altar of the coffee maker, you sway back and forth imagining the bright lights of the opera house as you walk onto the stage with your violin (that you never mastered) and play your sweet and soothing solo.

Then, you remember you are a bit peckish (Aussie for hungry) and you take the delay time to raid the fridge and find spinach and feta scones. You know you have made a good choice with this. Selecting the biggest one (no one will ever know), you split it and put a precise amount of butter on each half and nuke it (throw it in the microwave). The scent is divine as you pull it out of the heating chamber and it is only beaten by the fragrance of the nearly ready coffee.

The BELL !!!

Hurrah!! I grab my favourite, big blue mug -- made in Spain -- and fill it with the brown fluid and splash in a bit of milk and begin trudging back up the stairs with my hot coffee in one hand and the hot scone in the other, torturing my senses, My mouth begins to water from the promise of this tasty little reward.

And then, having slowly consumed and savoured the treat and sipped some of the amazing coffee, I turn back to my cooling keyboard and …..

It is gone…..