Writer’s Block?

I’ve often made mention of my contention that writer’s block is a myth, and that the inability to write something is because that certain something simply isn’t ready to be written yet. One of my suggestions has always been to switch projects and work on something else. There’s something else you can try. 

Riff. Jam. Improvise. Noodle on your instrument like a jazz musician. But what is my instrument, you ask? It’s not what you think. 

Computer keyboard or typewriter? No, that’s just what you use to write things down and preserve your improvisations. Liken it to a tape recorder to hold on to the gems you came up with so you don’t lose them. 

Vocabulary? No again; words are the arsenal, the supply closet, the quiver of arrows. Words are comparable to the notes that you combine in new configurations to create a brand new melody. 

Your instrument, you see, is your mind.

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What Year Is It?

Many in the news media, as well as actual human beings, seem to be unsure about how to say what year we’re in. The new millenium ushers in a new era of confusion about the most accepted way to say the year. Let’s make a rule: it’s two thousand eleven, not twenty eleven. 

The nineteen in nineteen-fifty was short for nineteen hundred. Since no one says twenty hundred, case closed. It’s two-thousand-eleven. 

And while we’re at it, let’s clear up the fact that 2011 is the first year of the second decade. If you thought 2010 was, do me a favor: count to ten. If you started with one and not zero, you agree with me. Thank you very much. 

We’re also using words the wrong way again. I mean still. Amazing and awesome should refer to things and events that are so transcendently grand that they soar the the realm of the unbelievably wonderful. Instead, they’re being used to describe a taco. What are you going to say when something truly awesome and amazing happens?

“Oh my god, aliens landed on the mall in Washington, D.C., and gave the president the cure for aging! That’s– That’s – delicious!”

Please stop. That would be awesome.

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