Writer’s Block
By Joseph A. Davis
You can’t write.
Give up?
You give up. Nothing gets written.
THE END
Do it anyway?
Your nightmarish mess of half-poems receives critical acclaim. The intelligentsia use it as a kind of emperor’s new clothes to make the common man see them as even more intelligent, and the common man pretend to love it because they think it will keep the intelligentsia from looking down on them. Your book becomes a number-one global bestseller, and all kinds of organizations start trying to book you for speaking engagements.
Retreat from society and become a hermit?
Use your speaking platform to start a revolution?
Retreat from society and become a hermit?
The success of your book has revealed some very terrible things about human nature that you struggle, in vain, to ignore or forget. Finally, you find yourself left with no other recourse than to shed your human clothing and flee into the forest. Your hope is to live as one of the wild animals, who you assume are more noble than your fellow man. This proves to be a very naive hope, as you are almost immediately eaten by a bear. Your desire to live as one of the noble wild animals was foolish for at least three reasons, you realize as you are devoured by your newfound ursine brother.
THE END
Use your speaking platform to start a revolution?
Realizing that your newfound celebrity status makes you both qualified and obligated to solve all the world’s problems, you accept every speaking engagement you are offered (well, at least the big ones – the ones with the potential to make you popular enough to REALLY make a difference.) You take every opportunity to preach about big, utopian ideals like love and peace, which you assume are both realistic and revolutionary. Your message is just vague enough to catch on, because everyone loves to hear about love as long as it doesn’t obligate them to do anything specific. Somehow, despite your revolutionary pretensions, it seems like everyone in the world agrees with you – everyone except the people in power, who view you as a threat.
Send free copies of your book to the people in power?
Send free copies of your book to the people in power?
The people in power do not like your book – not one bit. The fact that the intelligentsia love it makes them deeply suspicious. One night, you are kidnapped by some masked men who seem intent on beating you up to get you to agree never to write or speak again.
Tell them that violence is not the answer?
Agree to their demands?
After a thorough beating, their request seems reasonable. You never write again.
THE END
Tell them that violence is not the answer?
Despite your eloquent protests, your masked assailants seem to hold firmly to their belief that violence IS the answer. At first, you are shocked by their lack of receptivity to your sincere and original bit of inspirational wisdom. When you ask them why they won’t listen to you, one of your tormenters responds with an argument about how justice is whatever is to the advantage of the strong, which you suspect he borrowed straight from Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic. Unfortunately, you’ve never really read Plato’s Republic – you’ve just talked about it a lot. You find yourself unable to find a good counterargument, and so the masked man’s rhetoric forces you to give up and agree never to write again. That and the fact that they broke your hands.
THE END
Go insane?
Well, that talking fish was right, you realize – this writing stuff really is like catching bamboo ketchup.
Kill the frog?
Haha, you really think that you could kill the frog? Instead, it sends you on a quest. Apparently, there is a sleeping princess somewhere who needs to be found and kissed so that she can turn back into the frog that sent you on the quest.
Find the princess and kiss her?
Find the princess and kiss her?
You find the sleeping princess in the middle of a crowded street. She does not seem to want to be kissed, but hey, at least you tried. She summons her white-clad royal guards, who reward you by escorting you off to the happy comfort palace where everyone speaks to you very carefully and you get to drink as much fruit juice as you want on weekends. Sometimes you’re allowed to go out into the yard and walk around a bit.
THE END
You are the dragon?
Sadly, as the dragon, you cannot accept any quests. After filling your belly with gold coins and cats and things, you slither off to your lair to sleep for a thousand years. Your lair is a very nice place. Your servants wear pretty white clothes, and on weekends, they let you have as much fruit juice as you want.
THE END
Don’t kill the frog?
You decide not to kill the frog. After all, you are a humanitarian. . . and they only eat humans, right? You try eating one, but it is not very cooperative. “That’s the problem with people these days,” you say to yourself as you stagger off to the nearest pizzeria, nursing a black eye. “Nobody ever thinks about anyone except themselves.”
THE END
Trolyrien 