I'm taking a relatively small break in writing The Week of Dreams, and I promise this isn't anything resembling a cop-out or an attack of writers' block, because I believe in neither cop-outs nor writers' block. Writers' block is a cop-out sort of way of saying, "I don't particularly want to work on this because I'm not stretching my mind far enough." I don't experience writers' block, I experience not knowing what exactly to do next. It's like building a house or something; you've run out of bricks and you can't find the right kind of bricks anymore, so you're just staring at the unfinished house and maybe your tools, and you're trying to figure out what else you can use instead of bricks. I'm sure things like that happens, but I have never once encountered the term "builder's block". Perhaps all professions could be said to have some kind of "block". Let's say there is "dentists' block", "lawyers' block", "detectives' block".
Actually, detectives' block makes complete sense and sounds much like what I'm experiencing (and I don't say this just because I've been watching Sherlock lately and thus entertaining such thoughts). I've got these ideas and information, and I'm trying to piece them together in such a way so that they make as much sense as they can, but I don't have all of it yet, or I can't figure out how to make some parts connect, so I leave it alone and go do something completely different, like make scarves or draw cheetahs or catch turtles (actually, no, I don't catch turtles). And I try to make it make sense in my mind. So yeah. Detectives' block. That's what I have. If anybody asks me why I'm not making 1,000 words anymore is about, I'll say, "Oh, I have detectives' block," and leave it at that. Because people know me, they will not think it's incredibly strange, or they do, they will know not to question it.
That said, I do know what I'm writing over the summer. It's a project I've had in mind for, what, three years that I have not yet done justice to. I'm calling it All the Madmen right now (like the David Bowie song, but this is really probably subject to change). Those of you who know me know all too well what it's about. Those of you who don't...well, I have no idea why you're following this blog, but it's about a semi-dystopian future and the story of one person who lives in it, although it's more just a "life story" kind of thing (not as dumb as that sounds) instead of a political dystopia kind of whatever. The magical realism version of dystopias - the dystopia is just there, it's not what the story's about. Magical dystopia realism. That must be it.
So apparently I've coined the terms "detectives' block" and "magical dystopia realism". Someday, I must use them both in the same sentence. "So, why haven't you been writing, Jude? Any good reason for that?" "Yes. I've had detectives' block with my magical dystopian realism." And I will leave, and the other person will have no further explanation of that. And I'll go stare at bricks or run around trees or catch turtles or something. Yes.
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