Tags
cafes, cats, creating, Dubrovnik, ex-husbands, MacBook, memories, neighborhood, Villefranche, words, writer's block, Writing
Sometimes words just won’t come. I don’t where they are. Did I lose them somewhere? They were there before. I can see hundreds of them on the computer: Dubrovnik, Draft 3. Villefranche, Draft 2… Did I write those? Of course I did! But where did I put all those words? I can’t even seem to come up with enough to have a decent conversation with myself…let alone with the cats. Is this burnout? Have I used up all my available creativity and vocabulary?
I hate to lose things. Especially at my age. Every lost item cannot be explained off as a senior moment. Late at night I think about great aunties who were not, shall we say, all together at the end. Is that my future? Are these lost words the beginning signs? Those are my genes, after all…
I’m not sure writing is such a good occupation for a single person. Too much time alone. When I wrote the first book I, at least, had the mumbling-ex-husband around. I could interpret his grunts as conversation of a sort. (Actually, I think the cats are better company…but don’t tell them.) Maybe what’s happened is that I haven’t replenished the vocabulary jar in my brain. Reading all those mysteries hasn’t done it. I need to be around people. Pick up a word here or there dropped my way from their intelligent … well, hopefully, at least interesting conversations. I would become a word stalker.
I used to see this guy sitting on the patio of the Free Times Cafe. He looked like someone I should know …someone literary. But I’m terrible at celebrity recognition. He’d be there every day. Silver MacBook (just like mine) perched on little round table. I never saw him actually touch the keys but it looked good. If it was lunch time he had a white wine. Later, a martini. Maybe he was there to catch words too. Why not? I could do that. Not the alcohol … at least not at lunch. I’d be asleep. But I could perch my computer in a public cafe and gather words.
I would follow the advice given me by a Danish sea captain in 1975. He said he learned English begging for words on street corners in London. … please, just one word… I would do the same.
And I knew the right cafe… My vocabulary jar would runneth over…
Annie's Odyssey 