Writers Block

I have been suffering from the crippling disease of writers ...Writers Block. Well actually I would call it Writing Phobia. It all started with the near death of my over worked computer after being hit by a deadly virus of pandemic proportions. My computer went to the computer hospital where it sat in the sterile ICU environment with its poor little innards hanging out for about two weeks. When the diagnosis of its illness came back it wasn't good. Nothing but a complete internal flushing would work to get my poor computer back on the road to recovery. I panicked. Important data was trapped in the ill mind of my computer, data I had been either unable to or too lazy to back up. After all, I had never lost anything on my computer, and was always able to recover anything. My arrogance was about to cost me dearly.

The PC doctor assured me he could back up my data before flushing all memories and illness from my very ill computer. I begged him to be careful and save only two things for me - my manuscripts. He said he would copy all data on my computer. So...I did what all good mothers would do and gave the ok for the surgery to commence.

Days passed, and still no word. Then finally the call came. My computer had been even sicker than thought and would need a transplant. So...I once again gave the okay to proceed and finally, after another three days was told I could pick up my computer and the all important data disc. My computer was supposed to be "just like new". Needless to say, that was a little bit of an exaggeration, but it was home and running. Determined to never take chances again, I loaded the disc with my data, ready to back up my one most important manuscript. True to his word, data had been saved, some I didn't even want let alone need...everything...except one file...the most important file of all. Missing in action...one entire manuscript...gone.

I searched every file just in case it was hiding itself in an imitation of a virus. But unless the file had learned to bury itself somewhere deep in my registry (which obviously it could not)...it no longer existed. I cried. I called the computer store, and I begged them to say there was another disc they simply forgot to give me. I crossed my fingers, I searched again...nothing. I asked how could this be and was told maybe the virus had been hiding inside my document file, just that one file apparently ...and when the virus was removed my file went with it. I cried some more, wrote Donald Pennington to cry even more and get a little sympathy even though I didn't deserve it...after all, I was the imbecile who did not back up my files. Surprisingly, Donald didn't even rub that in.

I haven't written since. The closest I have been to writing is mouthing off on Facebook. I finally realized I was going through a form of grief resulting in extreme Writers Block that froze my creative brain in a huge, unbreakable ice cube. In fact, I am forcing myself to write this now in the hopes I will survive and move on. I don't think we always realize how much a part of us the words we write are. Every sentence, each phrase - has a little bit of us woven in. When we lose what we have created, we actually grieve. It is the same feeling we get when someone plagiarizes our work without acknowledging us as the source, except at least then our words are not forever lost. Yes, the words may come back, or be "reincarnated" per se, but never in the same exact form as before.

I keep telling myself there was a purpose to this loss other than the usual one of teaching me a valuable lesson. Sometimes I just get tired of being taught lessons and want there to be more to the story. But the reality is, the one value I will get out of this is the lesson learned. And hopefully, someone else will read this, realize they too have data they should be backing up...and learn a lesson from my lack of carefulness. Because I was careless, I have a book no one will ever read, not even myself. A story, I can never tell in the same exact way again, and characters who will never live. Is this a little dramatic? Yes, but then, loss of life always is -even if that life was only a figment of my imagination.

Hopefully, I am on the road to recovery and I will find more stories hiding in the data files of my brain and new characters will finally reveal their selves and beg me to tell their story.

Hey....I just wrote something! Ice cube melting!