Thoats of Groats

In which our Hero has nothing to say but is disinclined to say nothing

Write. Write, the voice says. Write, get it out of your head, whatever it is, whatever this cloud is that sits on your shoulders and deadens your voice and tangles your feet. Write. Bind it into little black lines on little white pages, even if the little lines aren’t black anymore, and the little pages aren’t paper anymore. Take it, take it all, and cast it out of your head and just, just, write.

The voice command, from somewhere inside me, and I would obey but the order is missing and the purpose is missing and all that’s left is a jumble of words, a rioting mob spelling pillage instead of crisp, clean-cut letters in paragraph brigades. Willow says I seem off, and she’s the one dealing with a death in her family. Hollywood asked me if I was awake today, and when I gave him a puzzled look, he told me I was very quiet.

One of the client’s managers asked if we had time for lunch, and I said sure, though what I wanted most was quiet time to myself to read or browse the web. Outside it was raining and Hollywood and he sheltered under an umbrella, and I ambled in drop-speckled shirtsleeves waiting for their paces to catch up to me. It was a nothing rain, the remnant drizzle after some storm or another, but something about the air and the rain felt good.

And that’s what I remember about today. The taste of that air, the texture of maybe twenty or thirty seconds walking in the rain. Not the feats of cunning and skill I have wrote. Not the frustrations I have overcome.

Somewhere I have a list of things to write about. Except I make these lists as titles for entries, and as time passes and distractions intervene, I forget what the titles refer to, until I have just an interesting list of titles and no words to go with them. But I need to write, I want to write. Maybe forcing myself will get the words flowing again.

I put up post-its on my cabinet at work. It’s like a micro declaration of war, in terms of personal significance, I don’t really like to advertise what’s on my mind. But it focuses my attention really well when I sit down to work, so now I’m thinking about how to achieve a similar effect at home.

I have half a thought about web design. It may be important, but I can’t tell yet. What I can see is that there is a gap in page layout design, but not a lot of good literature on how to address the fact that our desktop screens (including laptops) are so very wide but our mobile screens are so very long.

My brain feels dry.