500

I love writing.

I love breaking down sentences and playing with the words until they express exactly the idea I want. Sometimes my sentences are economical. Other times I like tricking them out like a muscle car, ornamenting them with adjectives and adverbs and punctuation and rococo phrasal curlicues until they sparkle with extra features--Extended Special Edition Sentences, if you will.

But some days it doesn't come so easy. Below are my journal entries for one of those days.

December 2
11:13pm
It’s been a long time since I’ve been this far behind on a writing project. I’m writing this entry Sunday night. I promised my editor an article by Monday morning and I’m 500 words short. I worked on it a bit last night, but was feeling blocked so I went to the bar to “clear my mind and renew my creative process” which is Dan-speak for “hit on a pair of blondes at least ten years my junior.”

Anyway, I’m hoping blogging will help get me going. Or maybe it will serve as a warning to aspiring writers to get their shit in on time.

I wonder how many words I’ve written in this blog entry. Funny, I don’t seem to be blocked HERE.

December 2
11:40
What the fuck is a druther? I’ll tell you--it’s one more word towards my total.

296 words to go.

December 2
11:55

324 words to go! I’m going backwards! I’m hemorrhaging prose! And I can’t tell if what’s left is any good.

Adverbs-- Tonight we dine in Hell!

December 3
12:10am

Can you use the words ‘poo factory’ in a family newspaper?

That’s what I thought.

Screw it. I’m going to bed. Monday morning means before noon, right?

295 words to go.

December 3
6:28am

I can’t believe I have to get up and finish this stupid article instead of finishing my dream about learning to play Ratt’s ‘Body Talk’ on the guitar. That song rules.

295 words, etc.

December 3
6:47am

Hey, that’s a pretty good line. I’m hilarious in the morning.

209 words to go.

December 3
6:52am
Can you mention Santa isn’t real in a family newspaper?

Screw it. If they’re old enough to read, they’re old enough to have their dreams shattered.

188 words to go.

December 3
7:05am

157 words to go. The ones at the end are always the hardest.


December 3
9:58am

Whoop-a-daisy, got a little distracted there.

On the plus side, I finished my push-ups and squats, showered, rehearsed my comedy for tonight, and had time for my morning nap.

The bad news. It’s ten o’clock.

80 words to go.

December 3
10:19am

I hate endings. I need to tie this together like a Christmas package, wrapping up my column-which combines laugh-out-loud funny with poignant and tender commentary on family life in the new millennium. And I need to do it in less than twenty words.

With the write[sic] words, I can turn this into a piece for the ages, which will be passed down through generations. When I’m 126 years old, I will see this column reprinted yet again, and over the whisper of royalty checks passed under my bedroom door by my wife of at least ten years my junior. I’ll crinkle my eyes and hold the words next to my heart and remember the folly of writing those words at 10:30 in the morning so many years ago.

But first I have to finish the damn thing.

18 words to go.

Finished! I hope the column will be as fun for you to read as it was a living hell for me to write.

I’d like to finish up this blog with something profound, but… I hate endings.