Writer’s block strikes. I strike back.
Just have not been able to write. [Blocked] Of course, priorities and time commitments. [Hacked] But I know the block springs from my writing partner’s criticism. [Discouraged]
I never thought to have a writing partner. While I knew that writers recommend the practice, just thinking of sharing my writing turned my mouth dry with dread. One day, the opportunity came up and I jumped into the rock quarry of fear and heard myself suggest out loud, “We could share our writing with each other.”
We started meeting to exchange writing samples. So far, okay.
Then she read my latest piece and did not have a good thing to say about it. She especially did not cotton to my non-sequitur asides. [Disheartened]
WARNING: The following is a non-sequitur aside.
When I was young, I entered a poem in my high-school literary fair. The judges taped a yellow Honorable Mention ribbon to my poster board. [Disappointment.]
Not only did I fail to capture the win, I did not measure up to second place or third either. Disheartened, I put away my poetry hopes.
“Your eyes,
Blue fire,
Blaze into me
Leaving only a
White hot, blistering…”
Maybe the judges didn’t cotton to what the poem was actually about. Supplemental warning: The poem was for mature audiences only.
This gal, my writing partner, didn’t follow my meanderings. She found them confusing.
You see, sometimes I stop in the middle of one story to share another story, because I’m Southern and Southerners use stories to deliver hot sauce to the taste buds of your consciousness with just enough honey to trick you into taking a bite of a truth-ey chicken biscuit.
She did not get the gimmick. This story within a story is Me, enjoying the telling via my personal, quirky, idiosyncrasy of a literary device. Me being me, the Southern Fool.
WARNING: Lack of Sequitur May Cause Dizziness
Imagine we are walking down a hall. At the end of the hall, stands a stool and on it sits the Ironic Ending I’m taking you to meet. And as we walk, we talk, and I point out interesting bits of nature or insight, or architecture or human character and we gather these thought artifacts and carry them along with us as we make our way down the hall. Sometimes I put the objects in my pack and sometimes I hand them to you to carry. Some are almost too heavy to tote. Some are so light, they feel like laughter in our hands. Some of the things I point out are so awkward and unbalanced, you ask me if you can just leave them hanging where they are. No, I say, as I run off to get a wheel barrow, we will need all these things at the end. Sometimes just as you bend down to grab a needle-sharp point that I have handed off to you, in my off-handed way, I halt you for a sec. Look, I gesture. You stop and, together, through a crack in the wall, we watch unfold a tiny one act play, an improv skit, a few lines from an updated version of This Is Your Life, something with a spec of coy wisdom, like a fleck of gold in the pan full of story sand. And the story coming through the crack in the wall shines a tiny glittering light, just enough to now see that the point is not to fix tear, but to fix on a direction, a compass needle.
And then we get to the end of the hall and say hello to the Ending, sitting there complacently, and he looks up from his phone and takes in the treasures we are carrying. I can see in his eyes the delight of tying all these points together; he is The Ending after all. His eyes twinkle with knowing. He barks out a laugh and kicks the ground — just so — which starts the stool spinning like mad, and the Ending throws up his arms in glee. To celebrate? To clear the air? To fly away?
Of course, it may also be true that my writing partner is right and I shouldn’t write like that. Also, my paragraphs, she suggests, too long. [Considering]
WARNING: Do Not Take With Sequiturs
I spread my arms wide
Let my heart laugh
Eyes singing
Forget to remember caution
This is how it is to live
a memory
(Just another high school poem award-winner wannabe.)
Orange Door Hinge 
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