A warm welcome to today's guest blogger, Tina Pinson!
I was writing away the other morning, my thoughts tripping
all over themselves as a story wound its way across the fibers of my brain. My
fingers flew to get the words down on as fast I could.
Then suddenly, I stopped.
Why? To do research? A bathroom break? No. Because I
couldn't think of one little word. Perhaps it wasn't so little as it would tie
my thoughts together nicely and concisely. J
I tapped restively on the keyboard. Bit my bottom lip and
thought. What is that word? Here word.
And if that isn't irritating enough, the more I tried to think
of the word, the more I forgot other words.
I swear… there's a deep dark hole in the back
of my skull sucking up all my words, never to let me recall them again.
Now we've heard about black holes, they regions of spacetime
where gravity is so strong, nothing, light included, can escape.
And light, a zap of inspiration, imagination, of something,
is what I need.
Stories have been written about travelers getting caught in
blackholes and warped to some other worlds or time.
I was warped right into a world of the nothingness, staring
at my computer screen like a hypnotized lab experiment, waiting for the deep
black space somewhere in my cerebral cortex to set my mind free.
I will myself to write. What's the word for…? (imagine the
sound of a big vacuum here) It's gone.
How do you describe…? (sucking sound again) It's gone.
I can't write a complete thought. My fingers bent and poised
over the keys, I stare at the screen, certain something will flash in the blue
static of my mind and paint itself on the blue of my computer screen.
The words don't come.
They're there somewhere. I know. I put them in the files of
my mind myself. Have used them before.
Where did they go? Why do they feel locked away out of
reach?
I didn't expect my mind to open a black chasm, a word
sucking void and not let my words flow forth when I needed them.
I've even done puzzles and gorged on books and information just
to energize my brain. To learn. Now I feel like an orator standing in front of
crowded theater who has just drawn a blank from nerves.
I have no audience to think of sitting in their underwear
though, to calm my nerves and free my mind.
How does one write pithy verbiage if their mind steals all
the words away?
Is this a sign that time marches on and I'm getting older?
Or has my brain soaked up so much information it took a brain dump to clear
space?
Doubtful on both counts.
So I continue to hunt for the words and hope that they
haven't gotten lost in the black of my brain.
All I can say at times like this is… Thank heavens for the
Thesaurus.
What do you do to energize your brain to help you remember?
To spur your thoughts on to write?

life, and that of her son's, back together again. She travels to Independence, Missouri ready to take the train west, but is denied the opportunity to join the train because she is woman alone. Matthew battles his way through one fight after another, all the while thinking of Rebekah. The woman who holds his heart.
He longs to help her west, but fears his biggest battle lies ahead of him. Will Rebekah open up her heart to him and allow him to be the one to hold her When the Shadows Fall?
Tina, I love your post! It's super frustrating when you know what word you want, and you can almost feel it on your tongue, but it refuses to appear. I thought it only happens to me, LOL!
ReplyDeleteOh, that happens all the time! :) You describe it so well... I wander off and do something else. Normally, I have a four year old pulling at me repeating "mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommmy", which explains why all the words the fly to my head are inappropriate. ;)
ReplyDeleteI remember babysitting three kids along with my three boys all five and under I think I lost so many words I was reduced to ga ga ga.
DeleteTina
Oh, so funny! Grabbing that word... Sometimes I just type any word and go back to it because the longer I stew the deeper that black hole gets!
ReplyDeleteMaria, Thanks for letting me ... Uh forgot the word,
ReplyDelete;-).
Tina P.
I think Tina's black hole in her brain is so strong it's sucking the words away from my muse.:)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, in my case, there's another reason. Tina, I'm just having fun with you.:)
Carolyn
Carolyn, I have to steal words wherever I can get them. :-)
ReplyDeleteMy favorite dinosaur is the The-saurus. I love the reverse dictionary, too.
ReplyDelete