So here I am again at this fidgety little notebook with the
too-small keys for my too-big fingers, the sole reason being to end a two
month-some block. Writing is like drinking water, I remember the author Conrad
Williams saying. My lips are pursed at the fountain...Not a single word in over two months. I mean, like, not even
a Facebook post. My last Facebook post got me in big trouble, by the way. It
read, You can't beat a nice crack pipe in the bath. It was a joke. I had
never smoked crack in my life until a couple of days after this post. It
spurred a new contact to get in touch with me and request a get-together. He
must have thought I was serious. That's the problem with my sense of humour;
it's all very blurred boundaries. It's difficult to decipher if I am
straight-talking or taking the piss.
I tooted for the first time. It was a blast. I'd been
cocooned on a claustrophobic hospital ward for eleven weeks and was out on
leave with new friends. It was a happy occasion. I subsequently failed a random
drugs test and lost any hopes of future freedom, including my leave. I was
crushed. I couldn't get out of bed for two weeks. I should have been painting
the flat with my girlfriend but was instead locked up against my will. It's
literally set me back months and months. All over a random toot with a random
guy. If only I hadn't posted that joke, then we never would have hooked up.
Zestiny. That's a bad form of destiny. I don't know where that comes from, I
think I made it up. Still. Drugs wreck lives. Even if you enjoy it and it feels
nice at the time and nobody gets hurt. Look at these judges and footballers
getting caught doing coke with prostitutes. One line on secret camera and their
careers are over. What's the real harm they are doing? I feel for the dealers
who get put away for time. What's their crime, really? They are just handling
stuff, yet they get more than child abusers. All they do is handle stuff. I
fail to see the fairness.
It feels good to have my writing cap on again. Life is bad
enough without not being a writer. It's a difference in the mindset; my mind
becomes a catchment area, a fishnet for all the bullshit. It's here where I
mine the sense in the nonsense. Already I'm cautious about how long this will
last, whether it's just a fad for a couple of days before the block sets in
again. It's lacklustre not being a writer, when you really are. It's like
smoking, when you really don't. Or not jogging when you really should be. I
miss my swimming, I tell you. I've not swam for over seven months (the length
of my recent ongoing admission), and it sucks. Not doing anything you really
love sucks. We should be overdosing on our hobbies and interests, not putting
them off for no good reason. I've not been blocked because I've had nothing to
say, rather the opposite; the truth is I've got too much to say. The trouble is
organising it into a coherent flow without repeating myself too much. The
trouble is structuring the torrential outpouring to come. I've not kept a diary in the last seven months either. That's
a genuine loss, especially while in mental hospital. All those goings-on and
not an accurate logging of any of it. What a shame. All the characters I've
met, and no record of them. I don't write diaries because I have an eventful
life, I write them to keep track of time. Without a diary, time slips away into
unmemorable nothingness. You simply forget stuff. Rereading old diaries
exercises the memory and the mind. It's like little flames rekindling in the
grey matter, flames otherwise extinguished by the monotonous swill of weeks and
months cascading over each other.
Saw a rainbow earlier. It made me think of ancient
civilisations. As in, I wonder what they made of them. I bet they thought they
were portents from God. It got me thinking that I would write about it,
somehow. Hey, writing about anything qualifies as being a writer. The blocked
author will take any food for thought. But that's enough about rainbows.
Content is all. It's probably better to be blocked than to be writing pure
bollocks. There's a thousand and one other writers out there writing pure
bollocks. I hope this isn't pure bollocks. You decide. This is where I am almost stumped: Where do I begin? I'm in
my chair, I've got the cap on, I'm drinking from the fountain...but it's as if
I'm afraid to start gulping it down. There's too much of it, it's too serious,
where oh where do I begin? Mind control. Start with the mind control. But
that's like a child abuse victim writing about child abuse. It's too full-on.
It's too much. That kind of stuff can be weaved into the fiction. Fiction
offers a release. Fiction offers extra licence to express oneself. Or does it
do nothing but muddy the waters? It's oh so true: Truth is stranger than
fiction. Maybe I should stick to non-fiction. And this is the beautiful part of
writing...talking to yourself. I'm doing nothing but talking to myself now.
Just gotta keep it going and beat this block...
Pleasant dreams last night, mingled in with erotic ones. When
you are regularly subjected to remotely-induced night terrors (mind control),
pleasant natural dreams are to be cherished. It's nice when pop-ups from youth
appear, random people you'd forgotten about. I used to make a lot of dream logs
a few years ago. Sometimes stories appear in dreams. They take harbour in their
entirety, start to finish, and need no planning. I've often capitalised on
this, and written straight-away in the morning. I don't write about my dreams
any more, I simply enjoy them. The good ones, anyway. I wouldn't have thought it possible that someone else can
control your dreams, but I have long been a victim of this. I'm certain there
is either an implanted chip or a satellite involved. It's fantastic material to
discuss, but scary as hell when it happens. I think, of all hallucinations,
tactile ones are the worst, because they are the most convincing. It's bad
enough hearing things and seeing things, but feeling things, like something
crawling on you for example, is particularly convincing. Simply horrible. When
you combine the three, you are inhabiting a virtual reality. A bad
virtual reality.
It's hard work not wasting time dwelling on my harassers.
It's as if their sole purpose in life is to destroy mine, but sparing me the
mercy of death. If I could make just one shout out to the world, it would be to
enlighten people about the evils of organised stalking and electronic
harassment being done to targeted individuals. Please google targeted individuals
and help me raise some awareness about the awful and terrible crimes being
perpetrated upon hapless innocent civilians. It's so atrocious. And its all
true as well. Don't believe the lies been told about how they are all crazy.
The stuff happening to them is crazy, but they aren't; not unless they are
driven crazy by it anyway. Moving on. I've just come across a comic called The Secret Of
The Brainchip, about psychosis. Fascinating reading. The truth will eventually
come out in future generations. I feel the block coming back now. I feel as if I have to keep
giving reference to it, in order to beat it. What I am at heart though is a
fiction writer, whether I like it or not. Flash fiction especially. A thousand
words or less is enough to make your point. I like compiling flash into short
anthologies as well. I might write something about a satellite next, but I do
have something to say about psychiatrists also: They don't know a goddamn
thing. There, I've said it. They know nothing about mind control or taking
drugs, yet they sit there lecturing me because I'm not a 'professional'.
Professional. Don't give me professional. They don't even know about the very
drugs they themselves dispense, because they have never tried them. Oh please,
don't get me started on psychiatrists. Ah well, you know what they say: If you
don't have nothing nice to say, then don't say nothing.
Blocked again! Well, it was fun while it lasted. And at least
I got over it for a short spell. Think I will read over and edit some recent
flash work to keep me at the keel. Ok, done that, and am now about to read over this. I'm aware
that I'm starting to waffle though,so it really is time to wrap up End Of
Block. It has proved as a useful warm-up for something else to come, something bigger,
maybe a long short story. There's something cosy about calling in everyday for
a little chat with myself, but I guess that's what blogging is for. There's no better listener than the blank white page. It's
both daunting and inviting. I'm in that strange place of wanting to write but
not knowing what to write about. I'm in the mood for redrafting, editing,
publishing...I enjoy making chapbooks. It's an ordeal numbering each one, but
there comes a satisfaction in producing quality products. Away from my office
and home computer though, I'm at a bit of a loss. My travelling notebook is
usually reserved for new stuff. Fresh, off-the-cuff new stuff. I'm acutely
aware however that one is only as good a their latest offering. That means that
if I write something crap, then I am now crap. Each creative outing is a test.
Do I still have the goods? Have I still got what it takes? There's only one way
to find out...
