Stalking the Muse

You know, when my students have writer's block I laughingly tell them to kill someone off. Apparently, they need to ratchet up the tension and a body hitting the floor does that. However, when I have writer's block . . . it's a different story. I think my muse is playing hide and seek right now. Last week, the words were flying. I couldn't get them down on the screen fast enough. This week the blinking cursor is mocking me. I know it's laughing and there's nothing I can do about it right now.

I'd like to say that it's everything going on at work right now that's driven the ideas clean out of my head. It would sound valid enough--I teach 8th grade and 8th graders in May at the start of a heat wave here in Chicago can definitely drive the blood pressure sky high. I actually don't go to the doctor on purpose at this time of year. Last time I did I got yelled at. Came back three weeks later and I was fine. Add to that the pension fiasco and attacks on public workers and the fact that I'm the union president and therefore the the messenger of all the bad news for my union members and you have a recipe for insomnia not just a lack of creativity. I joked last week that I was starting to feel like one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. People were going to start carrying garlic and crosses to ward me off. Too bad I'm an Italian Catholic--those relics don't work on me.

Hmmm . . . that could be a story right there.

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