The Cure for Writer's Block

I’m all ready to make this week’s Mr. Wrong column, but sometimes I can’t remember what I want to column about, you know? I mean, c’mon, I always have some sorta Topic, and no, I do not sympathise with any of this “Writer’s Block” stuff people whine about, like that article I looked at in The New Yorker about the guy who helped big-time Entertainment people get through their Writerering Block, har!

At least that’s what I think it was about, the article, I mighta not completely absorbed it, on account of I have Reader’s Block, seriously, I mean, I don’t move my lips or anything like that when I read (except in connection with enjoying snacks so I guess I totally and constantly move my lips when I read, urp!), and I’m pretty good at sounding out any novel Big Words inside my head, but I have to read stuff a few times usually, especially if I am Thinking while I read it, because then I just start Thinking about Thoughts and my eyeballs continue to look at the shapes of the letters and the way they are grouped into bigger shapes and then the way those are separated by little marks and so my eyeballs are perfectly happy to just cruise right along like this time where I got all caught up trying to remember the Significance of some Ancient artwork where They (the Ancients) would depict, like, the Deity/Rulers or whatever they were supposed to be as much larger than the ones who were getting Ruled, and that’s because in the artwork for this thing, about the guy who has all this psychology for how to Unblock, the guy was drawn as being like a giant compared to the person who was In Need of Guidance, so I sailed through major chunks of the article thinking about those Egyptian deals, friezes? Bas-reliefs?

Whatever, that’s another key to not having Writers Block, I think, is you don’t ever have to stop and figure anything out, you know? And you are all hung up on having to have an Outline? Fine, start making the Outline, out of words, and just keep going, you know? What are you, trying to be Economical with all those letters you are touching out on your iPodpad or whatever? That shit’s free, man, just concentrate on spewing out another coupla thousand of ‘em and there’ll be something in there to work with, trust me, you don’t have to stop anytime soon to look at it or read it (blergh) or fix your punctuationals, jeez, just stack up some words and then later you can go back and see if any of it makes sense, see?

I could totally set myself up as one of these quacks who tells people their whole problem with why they are not Awesome (yet), like they are Supposed To Be¹, is buried deep Within their psyches or whatever, because of course it’s true, where the hell else are all your goddamn Writer-Block problems, hah? Of course you are The Enemy! Write me an Essay on Why You Can’t Write and I bet you would be able to go nuts with that shit, right? Unless you are lazy or on drugs (or have a similar legitimate Medical Excuse such as ti many martoonies), you have only your own brain to blame for these Problems, and only your own cute li’l brain can fix them. I think that is also Dianetics, but I am afraid to read that book and I am also afraid of the Scientologists, so please do not attack me, Scientologists, I am not making fun of your Beliefs or anything like that, I am just Afraid of you. I mean, that religion has gotta work if John Travolta has his own Boeing 747 that he knows how to fly? No offense, but that is some Science Fiction, man, and I’m not too proud to say I have a primitive Fear-Response to all that next-level Achievement, you know? Anyway, back to you and your so-called Writing Blockade. Do you ever have Writing Blocks when you are making a list of groceries, or when you are writing to Santa? Of course not! One Ingredient leads to another, one Selfish Demand inspires thousands and that’s exactly how you write.

So look, I was gonna write my column about something and I couldn’t remember what, so I have these Notes where I write down Ideas. Now I am looking at my notes, Jesus H. Christ, what a bunch of garbage, but like, kabillions of words, man. It’s just like panning for gold, seriously, I am not sweet on myself like it sounds right now, but with all the Notes I got stashed away, I don’t ever have to think up another idea ever again, and neither should you, if you have a Brain.

Ants. I was gonna write about how I have ants in my house every Springtime, and the way I usually deal with it is I go to the hardware store and but this shit called TERRO, which is straight-up Liquid Death.

Warning: Explicit Ant Death footage.

Every Spring/Summer, The Ants find their way in, and pretty soon they are making a goddamn beeline, if you will, for just outside the dish where the little pellet of dry catfood that the stupid cat batted out of the bowl is (and seriously, sidebar here for the stupid cat: you cry for the goddamn food pellets and then you fucking swat ‘em around like it’s Olympic ping-pong or whatever, what the hell is your problem?), or (back to the Ants) for like, a tiny fragment of food particle on the counter or floor in the kitchen, and look man, I am not a slob, I clean up, because I lived in an apartment that had roaches once and you get pretty fucking Paranoid about leaving anything out when those nasty fuckers are creeping around eating stuff that doesn’t even qualify as food, you know, like glue outta books and stuff? Fucking roaches. Anyway, when I see some ants doing their trail-thing, I do not hesitate, I go Nuclear with this TERRO shit, and I understand that an Ant Colony is like a giant Organism and stuff, so yeah, there’s a little bit of Murder to regret, since I am not having like, Roast Ant for dinner after killing ‘em, and then I read a thing someplace by this guy who studied Ants and got a Nobel Prize or something, I dunno, maybe it was this guy, har! Nah, it was this guy, he wrote a book maybe, or did enough to get people to ask him questions about Ants, and he said something like, “If you have Ants in your house, please don’t kill ‘em,” unquote, approximately, and then there’s that thing in The Bible:

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?"

That's the Proverbs 6:6-9, King James Remix.

See, the Ant, she is an industrious mofo, which should be an example to All Americans, on the back of a 25-cent piece somewhere. I mean, you ever hear any Ants bitch about getting disappeared like all the Bees? Hell no, they handle their business. They ain’t out there like those hippie-ass Bees all blaming The Man for all their problems. Respect the Ant, man.

So now I really officially feel bad about the skyrillions of Ants I have wiped out, and so this year it’s all about the non-lethal response, to wit; Peppermint Oil. I saw a few scouts out the other day in my kitchen, and they weren’t ant-trailing to anything, so as long as I don’t have a solid column of ants parading over my kitchen counter, I am gonna stay cool, and then if the shit jumps off and there’s a hardcore Ant incursion, I’m going with this Peppermint Oil stuff, which you are supposed to put down and it repels ‘em, I guess, and then they will stay outside or just eat stuff where you can’t see it? Anyway, I have had my problems with the Formicidae family in the past, and I want to move forward, especially since the Ant is for me, a sign that Summer is on the way, Good Times, and I can start enjoying my above-ground Geto-Pool™ providing I take care of all the goddamn wasps that have built nests out under my deck. Those guys I will not do Peppermint oil on.

¹ And I totally reserve the pukey book title: WHY YOU ARE NOT AWESOME YET LIKE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE²

² ("Because you already are, you just don’t know it!")³

³ Puke

Mr. Wrong can instruct you via many medias.