BootsnAll Travel Community

It’s finally happening. I can’t get into the writing. I’m editing the mess I wrote while on the road for seven months last year into a book and I can’t find the jazz I need to make it book-worthy. It doesn’t help that I have now been staring at some of this material for over a year. It becomes very hard to look at something with a fresh and objective mindset during the 176th read-through. I’m not having writer’s block. I can still write to beat the band. I just can’t make what I’ve got sound good, or interesting or funny or more coherent than a third grade book report on “Harry Potter and the Secret of the Nine Inch Dildo” or whatever. I catch myself just skimming the material absentmindedly for pages at a time and not seeing basic grammatical errors, much less injecting needed brilliant and witty enhancements into this stuff.

Plus, all the distractions are really hitting me hard. It’s too hot in this damn apartment (A/C doesn’t come standard in most Romanian apartments, or in Romania for that matter). And I’m fricking uncomfortable! I’m in a nearly bare apartment. I don’t have a desk, so I’m sitting on a couch that someone obviously rescued out of a dumpster, hunched over my laptop which is perched on a broken chair. My back isn’t stout enough for this kind of ergonomic torture, so I have to get up every five minutes to drink some orange Fanta and look out the window at the gypsies stealing shopping carts out of the Billa (big, Romanian, Target-like super store) parking lot next door. Having my own net connection has made me into a hopeless check-email-every-45-seconds junkie. Then there’s this damn web site! So much stuff that I want to read and discussions that I want to start about my next trip and piss that I want to take out of Chris! Arg! I’ve got the attention span of a screamer monkey on speed! Last year I did all of my writing in hostels for Christ sake. Drunk teenagers everywhere, noise, working in plastic chairs and lumpy beds and dirty stairways. How did I focus through all of that and now I can’t even write if a car alarm is going off two blocks away?

This has been going on for a week! What can I do? Yeah, yeah, I know, “take a break.” I would love nothing more than to take a week off, work on something else, watch TV, get drunk, go vampire hunting… But I have a very serious, self-imposed deadline. At the very least, I have to get a draft in the can that I won’t be embarrassed to show people before I blast off into my next trip this September. So, I need a quicker fix. Watching “Pulp Fiction” and reading other people’s killer stuff for inspiration has worked in less extreme situations, but I may be too far over the edge for that. In the grand scheme of things, I’m still pretty new to writing and REALLY new to writing related obstacles. I need ideas people! And sympathy! Chop, chop!

Leif

"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

[Talking out of side of mouth, in cartoon, high voice]

Hey Leif! Don’t worry! You’ll buck this! Just relax, eat some chocolate, get laid, take a cold bath and you’ll be good as new! You can do it!

"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

[Talking out of other side of mouth in deep, smoker’s raspy voice]

Yeah, Leif. You’re effing brilliant! That shit you wrote on Amsterdam was so funny I broke a sweat while reading it! You’ve got what it takes, man. Go out, get a bottle of vodka and spike all that damn orange Fanta. You’ll be fine (after the hangover).

"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

[In best Cartman voice]

Leif, you are so cool and smart and funny and all the chicks dig you. I wish I was more like you. How did you get to be so great? Is there a pill or something?

"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

[In best Chris voice, though I have no idea what he sounds like]

Waaaaay off topic, mate. If you wanna post this kind of drivel, start a bloddy blog.

"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

Lol, Leif Leif Leif...whatever are we going to do with you?

When I can't focus on writing, I focus on something so tedious that it makes me want to write...so...read everything, look for grammatical errors ONLY. For you, I say pay special attention to the annoying its/it's and their/they're/there problems. When you can't stand it anymore, then start thinking about interjecting funny comments...it's kinda like the bore yourself to sleep theory...may not work for you, but it's helped me.

Also, what about a park, in the early morning hours? Get away from your internet connection and you'll discover that you're a lot more productive when there is nothing else that you can do with your computer but write and edit.

and above all...good luck

Court

"Travelling is like flirting with life. It's like saying, 'I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.'" Lisa St. Aubin de Terán

Hmmm, I’m going to nix the bringing the laptop to a park, or any public place for that matter, as it is worth more than any five cars on the street here, but I will definitely look into getting away from the net wire. It will do terrible things to my on-the-fly fact checking, but I’m ready to try anything here.

Court, if I went through the trouble of checking on the its/it's and their/they're/there problems, what would you do with your days? Oh right, surf the net.

Leif

"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

RELAX!!!!! It's not apathy,you just need a mad rush of deadline.
Your not the only one who has that problem.

The late Douglas Adams, writer of the "Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy"series,says he needs that mad rush of deadlines to get his writing done. 3/4 of the time before deadline he says that he just"Stares at a blank piece of paper until beeds of blood start to drip from his forehead".

Your just suffering from the same thing.
You'll be OK!!!!

BIG-TARGET>>>>> "...damned Brave, or a complete fool, but bloody Resourceful fellow" Captain 'Buck' Flashman, (father of Harry Flashman) Waterloo 1815

UPDATE:

Well, it appears, at least in my case, that the best way to shake off an extended bout of writing psychosis is to whine about it at great length in a public forum, then watch four uninterrupted hours of Tour coverage (Lance Armstrong mercilessly creamed everyone in yesterday’s time trial), while eating two pizzas and then throw the woman out of the house early and get 10 hours of sleep.

I’m on fire. Business as usual. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s untold brilliance to be composed and disseminated

Thanks for the support!

Leif

"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

Glad you are back. I think the Fanta may be the problem. All the corn syrup and red dye number 666 is probably giving you a rotting brain abscess. Stick an ice-pick in the numb spot and go back to the two-dollar wine.

I liked it better when bombs were dumb and the President was smart
bloggylicious

Way ahead of you, my friend.

"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

What helped some past creative greats:

Van Gogh - Absinth & Mental Instability
Michelangelo - Possible Autism
Gaugin - Tahiti & Syphilis
Mary Shelley - Nightmares
Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Opium
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Opium
Jean Cocteau - Opium
Arthur Conan Doyle - Opium
Salvador Dali - Hashish
Sigmund Freud - Cocaine

I don't know how this will help you, and i shudder to think, but there you go.

I hate to see you go,
but I love to watch you leave.

Wait, so I have to edit this book AND develop some kind of neurosis or drug-related idiosyncrasy? No one mentioned that during my Half-assed Attempt at Travel Writing seminar!

Jesus, things were easier at the Federal Reserve, where my only problem was tolerating the disturbing Dilbert-like behavior from my management and colleagues.

Leif

"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

Your neurosis and drug-addled behavior will be viewed as sure indicators of creative individualism by the history books.

I hate to see you go,
but I love to watch you leave.

You’re right! Hunter S. Thompson is the reason that I started writing and look at him! He’s out of his gourd!

OK, two questions: Where can I get opium in Romania and what the hell do you do with it? Smoke it? Snort it? Bake it into brownies? Mmmm, brownies! Huhuhuhuhuh!

"When the going gets weird, the Weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

If you have about 25 hours of spare reading time, check out my full, raw, uncut Western Europe Travelogue

Yes.

I liked it better when bombs were dumb and the President was smart
bloggylicious