Et al.

Hostage update: Day 233

I am still held captive by the article that refused to die, gel, or even coagulate into something of both substance and structure. It seems we have been together, this ever-growing, bloated, over-written and under-thought sheaf of words and I, for all of time--as though I had spent lifetimes here, tinkering with its dangling modifiers and turgid prose, transplanting its misplaced paragraphs and repetitive ideas. I am becoming an academic cliche, now: the professor who is always and has always been "working on" something that will never see the light of day. My essay has assumed vampirean qualities that merely confirm the banality of my ideas: it sucks the life-blood from me; it rises in the night, haunting my fevered dreams; it is dead yet will not die. More prosaically, the best resists my best efforts to streamline, organize, and condense its mass into something smart, concise, and...dare I say it?...interesting.

Yet we struggle on for another day. If my metaphors weren't already so atrociously entangled, I'd belabor the whole thing further with some references to Sisyphus and his stone, and how every day when I sit down and look this damn thing over it seems bigger, less manageable, and, scariest of all, less worthy of all this effort!

I hear a local farm has an opening for an egg gatherer. I think perhaps I should consider a career change.

Shhh--my captor approaches!

Labels: writer's block

posted by Unknown @ 9:58 AM