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"Writer's Block" by victoriadeleon

Category: Short Story

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Writer’s Block

by Victoria DeLeon

Why’s it gotta be so cold in here? I ask myself, pulling the window closed tighter, as if closing it an hour ago wasn’t enough. The colors outside are all faded into a bland, wintry spectrum of grays and off-whites, not leaving much room for any inspiration from nature. Not that the weather is any excuse for my lack of creativity these days. . .

But before I continue ranting, I should probably introduce myself. My name is Roger Covington. I was born in this town, and I’ll probably die here too. In fact, I may die within the hour, if I can’t come up with a good idea for a story. I’m a writer, see, and I can’t afford the luxury of daydreaming myself into a coma when I’ve got books to sell and bills to pay. I tried escaping to the city, where bills and winter chills were even worse than they are here in little old Calville, New York. My parents are both gone now, resting under those overpriced headstones that put the rest of the family in the poorhouse. Emily and Erma, my sisters, lucked out and both found good men to marry them and get them in off the street, but my brother Hal and I had to find our own way, and that’s why I’m here.

It’s actually kind of ironic when you think about my economic status. My mom and pop always had to have the best—seriously, if you get the chance, have a look-see at those headstones and you’ll know what I mean—and naturally I was raised with some of the finest things money could buy, at least in Calville. Oh, we were nothing compared to the city folks with all their fancy suits and shiny cars, but next to the other ladies in town Mom had the best summer dresses, and in response to the neighbor’s new gramophone, she insisted we go into debt to buy a state-of-the-art washing machine—an actual machine that did the washing for you! Meanwhile, Pop kept a nice-size library, and some of his books were leather bound, too. I wore expensive shoes, which I was repeatedly criticized for muddying up after playing outside, and I guess you can say that’s where my resentment first started. Life was all just a big show, and I was the clown. It got old real fast, and so I took to writing down all these ideas I got about being your own man, and being practical.

Now I rent an isolated cottage in the outskirts and live on the spoils of Calville’s countryside.

I’m just about as hungry as a wolf and so I go to my cupboard and get ready to make some canned soup—which is all I can afford, and I'll be eating it cold—when out of nowhere there’s a knock on the door. This kind of catches me off guard, seeing as no one ever comes to visit me. I live in this tiny place by myself, all secluded, and that’s how I like it because then I can think. No one bothers me for months, not even the milkman, and now someone’s rapping on my door like he’s got nothing better to do, and I grudgingly set down the Campbell’s to see who it is.

So I open the door and guess who’s standing there. It’s my sad, vagabond of a brother, Hal, looking like he’s just come from sleeping in a dirty old barn with pigs and cows and such, and he has that expression that lets me know he needs money. Like I have anything of the sort just laying around here, scattered with all my papers or pressed between the pages of all these books that I’ve been reading when I should’ve been chained to my typewriter making a masterpiece. Sure, Hal, let me just grab my wallet and we’ll see if we can't get you than new Model-T Ford, eh?

“Erma finally kicked you out?” I say, because it’s a statement more than a question. No way would he come here, much less show up looking like he does, had she agreed to keep him any longer in that fancy penthouse with her husband Frank and my three rascally nephews.

He nods grimly like I’m supposed to feel sorry for him and hangs his head a bit. “She said I needed to be looking for work.”

“Sounds about right,” I tell him, tucking a pen behind my ear and crossing my arms.

“It’s not that easy,” he answers, pouting like a child. “You don’t know what it’s like lookin’ for real work.”

“Oh, I don’t?”

Now I’m mad. Who does he think he is? My younger brother, talking to me this way. And as if I were all wet.

“Not everyone can write,” he tells me, like this justifies his lack of progress. “And these are rough times.”

He’s right, I suppose, and I soften up a bit. Lucky for us, Mom and Pop spent too much time worrying about having things to show off to the neighbors than they did worrying about investments. Heck, our money got spent so fast it hardly ever saw the bank at all, which sounds pretty irresponsible until you consider all the folks that lost their savings with the stock crash. The phrase “nothing to lose” sure held its ground in our case. Work, however, was another story.

“So what is it you want?” I ask, getting another eyeful of how filthy he is. “I got no cash to give you—not even a five spot. What’s worse, I’m trying to think up something good for the publisher, or else the water won’t get paid and the city’ll shut it off.”

Hal sighs at me and I continue. “They already shut off the heat. And if I can’t bathe, I’ll end up looking like you.”

I can’t help but chuckle at myself, but Hal here doesn’t think it’s too funny.

“Just let me stay a few nights,” he pleads, and I can tell he didn’t have to swallow too many slices of humble pie to get that one out of his mouth. I tell ya, no dignity whatsoever. Nothing but a grifter.

After a minute or two of hesitation, I nod my head and stand aside so he can walk past me into my cracker-box living room before I have the chance to change my mind. He seems grateful, I suppose, but then he turns up his nose like something died in here, scowling at the mess of crumpled papers lying all over the floor as if I’m supposed to do something about it—as if this is some kind of hotel. Forgive me, Prince Hal. Or should I call him Henry?

My brother and I basically don’t speak for the rest of the evening, and what was a light snowfall this afternoon now turns into a heavy rain and makes a loud, tinny sound when it hits my roof. I hand Hal the other half of my soup, reluctantly, and still don’t say a word and neither does he, and the next thing I know he’s out cold on my sofa where that darned cat used to sleep before she ran away. She must’ve realized I wasn’t going to be able to feed her and moved on to greener pastures.

I try to work on my writing but I get nowhere, and I don’t know how much time has gone by. I ignore the hunger pains and the fact that my eyes are burning and try to concentrate but the clock catches my attention.

It’s three thirty in the morning. Hal is snoring, which doesn’t help my increasing anxiety about my rapidly approaching deadline. Even if he could just snore in rhythm, rather than that off-meter grumbling, it wouldn’t be half as bad.

I don’t know what I’m going to do about my work. Nothing comes to me. Some days, things just jump right out of the air and into my head. Other times, I feel like I’m chasing spirits. It’s like the subjects are living, breathing things, with hearts and souls . . . and intentions. If they intend to be found, they’ll find you; otherwise, you’re left alone (well, except for your worthless brother) in a dark house with a live-in rat and hardly any food. It’s like the ideas are born into the world just like people, just like animals, or inventions; and should you be so fortunate as to be the doctor that guides them into being, your life is one truly touched. This theory leaves me hopeless, though, because I can’t just wait around for the next ingenious thought to be born—but, I might be able to get a previous birth mother to bear another idea.

So I go to my book of ideas, where I write those little sparks I get when I’m out in public—which isn’t often—or when the brightness of the sun touches me in a particularly inspiring way. I rustle through the pages, and I think I’m on to something. I’ve got 1200 words on the Roman Empire from when I went to the library last month, and the beginnings for a story about the scandals and mysteries of Emperor Leo VI. Who doesn’t enjoy a good, historical fiction mystery based on true findings?

But then I remember what my publisher said about little-known figures in history, and I think of the wastebin overflowing with similarly failed plans. Pacing back and forth with the book, I find another page from a time when I walked through the park—a rare occurrence, as I’ve implied—and I saw an old man sitting under a cherry tree and I wondered what he was thinking, and then I got the idea to write about the inner thoughts of a troubled old man whom, to everyone else, appears unnaturally quiet and reserved.

But then I remember how a twelve-page dead end about the “secret confessions of a sad, mentally unsound, young girl” sits dustily on my crooked shelf, and I worry that the old man would just be a useless repeat.

I keep pacing, because this usually helps. Medical people would say it keeps the blood flowing to your head, and that has something to do with how a person thinks. I speak aloud what’s on my mind, and I gesture a lot. My brother doesn’t stir. I keep talking to myself, asking myself questions to try and provoke a topic. I do this a lot.  

When that doesn’t work, I usually resort to scribbling miscellaneous thoughts and topics on paper, only now I’m all out because I tried that yesterday and ended up with three new novel introductions and consequentially three more dead ends. Plus I had to burn some of that paper for heat, which lasted less than thirty seconds and then I had to clean up the mess of ashes. And with that I realize how, even when I do come up with something—and I will—I won’t have anything to type it on. So I go to the window to mope.

I look out into the woods and I see a crow fly by and it reminds me of a bird I saw once in a moving picture. Strange picture, it was, as I recall. The characters were making a picture, themselves. How wacky is that? To make a picture about making a picture? It’s downright pointless is what it is. Who’d pay money to see that? And then it hits me: I did. In fact, so did a lot of other folks. It occurs to me that that picture probably made a pretty good deal of money, and I start to think up other places where I might have seen this kind of cleverness.

“That’s right,” I think to myself out loud. “I knew that dame in Trenton who wrote music . . . said she couldn’t think what to sing about, so she sung about how hard it was to find the right words.” Only by words, she meant lyrics. She sung about singing—about having nothing to sing.

“Say!” I almost shout, and Hal rolls over like a dog, and drools about as much too. “Say, what if I were to write . . . about having nothing to write.”

I pick up a few balls of paper from under the table and flatten them out so I can type on the other side, but the crinkles are stubborn. I tug and rub as hard as I can until it’s good enough, pinching the misshapen paper into my typewriter, and I start writing about a guy who lives in a dark, ratty cottage who’s stumped for something to write. He’s got a brother, too, see, who comes and sponges off his wealth, which isn’t much more than a few breadcrumbs and some recycled pages.

In the end, though, he’s gotta come up with something—a solution to the writer’s block. Hmm.

Maybe after pacing, and scribbling, and rustling through pages and talking to himself, he’ll decide to write about a guy with nothing to write about . . .

And it’ll just go one forever.




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Category Name: My Thoughts

I did not enjoy this story. I am not even sure what problem the protagonist faced. This story was okay. The story would have been better if the author had introduced the problem differently and made it feel more pressing. I really enjoyed this story. The author did a good job pulling me into the story by introducing an immediate and important problem for the protagonist.

This section is for overall comments and general ideas. The score should reflect how much you enjoyed the story.

Category Name: Character Development

The characters were not dynamic, credible, interesting, memorable or unique. I don’t care about or understand the characters because they were poorly developed. The characters were somewhat dynamic, credible, interesting, memorable and unique. I partially understood the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the characters. I somewhat connected with and care about the characters. The characters were very dynamic, credible, interesting, memorable and unique. I thoroughly understood their thoughts, feelings and actions. I felt connected with and cared about the characters.

This is act of bringing a character to life on the page. It is a combination of the author’s description of the character and the character’s dialog, action, and thoughts. Though all characters should be believable, the protagonist and antagonist are usually the most developed characters.

Category Name: Plot

I finished reading the story so the plot must have unfolded, but I am not sure what the plot was. The characters did not achieve or grow by solving the problems they faced in this story. There were definite wrinkles in the way the plot unfolded leading to the final conflict. The plot was loosely tied to the achievement and growth of the characters. The way the protagonist overcame some of the problems flowed unnaturally with the story. I could see the plot unfolding through a series of escalating problems that lead to the final conflict. The plot helped me understand the achievements and growth of the characters. The way the protagonist overcame the problems flowed naturally with the st

In fiction a plot is all the events in a story, particularly rendered towards the achievement of some particular artistic or emotional effect. In other words it's what mostly happened in the story. The plot draws the reader into the character's lives and helps the reader understand the choices that the characters make.

Category Name: Dialog

The dialog seemed like cold words on paper. I had a hard time following it. I didn’t learn very much about the characters through the dialog. Through the dialog I could sometimes see the characters learn and grow while occasionally discovering new facets of their personalities. The dialog was generally consistent with the character. Through the dialog I could see the characters learn and grow while simultaneously discovering new facets of their personalities. The dialog was true to the character and it helped me understand the characters emotions.

Category Name: Setting

The setting created a haze in my mind that detracted from the story. I am lost in time and space because I don’t know when or where this story takes place. The setting was described adequately, but not well enough to bring it to life in my mind. The setting did not add to or detract from the story. I am pretty sure I know when and where the story takes place. The author engaged all of my senses while vividly describing the setting. The setting helped me better understand the setting and plot. I know when and where this story takes place.

The setting is where a story takes place. The choice of setting and its description helps the story come alive in the mind of the reader. Appropriate setting contributes to the plot and mood of the story.

Category Name: Mechanics

The story contained so many mechanical errors that it was hard to follow the plot or understand certain sentences or paragraphs. Occasional mechanical errors were distracting, but these errors did not inhibit me from being able to understand the plot or connect with characters in the story. I rarely if ever noticed mechanical errors. As far as I could tell, the writing was clear and correct.

Mechanics includes sentence structure, verb agreement, grammar, spelling, voice, punctuation and aspects of basic style.

Note: The purpose of ReviewFuse reviews is NOT to provide comprehensive copy editing, but rather to "ignite creativity." Reviewers should not feel obliged to point out every grammar or spelling error (though they certainly can if they wish), but should focus on this area only to the degree that errors make a story hard to follow or understand.

Inline comments are the most helpful and important aspects of your review.

Click on a paragraph or highlight text from the paragraph to provide inline comments. While detailed grammar correction is welcome, the purpose of inline commenting is to spark the author's creativity. This is best done by expressing feelings, questions, and concerns you have about the story while you are reading.

1.

2. Writer’s Block

3. by Victoria DeLeon

4. Why’s it gotta be so cold in here? I ask myself, pulling the window closed tighter, as if closing it an hour ago wasn’t enough. The colors outside are all faded into a bland, wintry spectrum of grays and off-whites, not leaving much room for any inspiration from nature. Not that the weather is any excuse for my lack of creativity these days. . .

5. But before I continue ranting, I should probably introduce myself. My name is Roger Covington. I was born in this town, and I’ll probably die here too. In fact, I may die within the hour, if I can’t come up with a good idea for a story. I’m a writer, see, and I can’t afford the luxury of daydreaming myself into a coma when I’ve got books to sell and bills to pay. I tried escaping to the city, where bills and winter chills were even worse than they are here in little old Calville, New York. My parents are both gone now, resting under those overpriced headstones that put the rest of the family in the poorhouse. Emily and Erma, my sisters, lucked out and both found good men to marry them and get them in off the street, but my brother Hal and I had to find our own way, and that’s why I’m here.

6. It’s actually kind of ironic when you think about my economic status. My mom and pop always had to have the best—seriously, if you get the chance, have a look-see at those headstones and you’ll know what I mean—and naturally I was raised with some of the finest things money could buy, at least in Calville. Oh, we were nothing compared to the city folks with all their fancy suits and shiny cars, but next to the other ladies in town Mom had the best summer dresses, and in response to the neighbor’s new gramophone, she insisted we go into debt to buy a state-of-the-art washing machine—an actual machine that did the washing for you! Meanwhile, Pop kept a nice-size library, and some of his books were leather bound, too. I wore expensive shoes, which I was repeatedly criticized for muddying up after playing outside, and I guess you can say that’s where my resentment first started. Life was all just a big show, and I was the clown. It got old real fast, and so I took to writing down all these ideas I got about being your own man, and being practical.

7. Now I rent an isolated cottage in the outskirts and live on the spoils of Calville’s countryside.

8. I’m just about as hungry as a wolf and so I go to my cupboard and get ready to make some canned soup—which is all I can afford, and I'll be eating it cold—when out of nowhere there’s a knock on the door. This kind of catches me off guard, seeing as no one ever comes to visit me. I live in this tiny place by myself, all secluded, and that’s how I like it because then I can think. No one bothers me for months, not even the milkman, and now someone’s rapping on my door like he’s got nothing better to do, and I grudgingly set down the Campbell’s to see who it is.

9. So I open the door and guess who’s standing there. It’s my sad, vagabond of a brother, Hal, looking like he’s just come from sleeping in a dirty old barn with pigs and cows and such, and he has that expression that lets me know he needs money. Like I have anything of the sort just laying around here, scattered with all my papers or pressed between the pages of all these books that I’ve been reading when I should’ve been chained to my typewriter making a masterpiece. Sure, Hal, let me just grab my wallet and we’ll see if we can't get you than new Model-T Ford, eh?

10. “Erma finally kicked you out?” I say, because it’s a statement more than a question. No way would he come here, much less show up looking like he does, had she agreed to keep him any longer in that fancy penthouse with her husband Frank and my three rascally nephews.

11. He nods grimly like I’m supposed to feel sorry for him and hangs his head a bit. “She said I needed to be looking for work.”

12. “Sounds about right,” I tell him, tucking a pen behind my ear and crossing my arms.

13. “It’s not that easy,” he answers, pouting like a child. “You don’t know what it’s like lookin’ for real work.”

14. “Oh, I don’t?”

15. Now I’m mad. Who does he think he is? My younger brother, talking to me this way. And as if I were all wet.

16. “Not everyone can write,” he tells me, like this justifies his lack of progress. “And these are rough times.”

17. He’s right, I suppose, and I soften up a bit. Lucky for us, Mom and Pop spent too much time worrying about having things to show off to the neighbors than they did worrying about investments. Heck, our money got spent so fast it hardly ever saw the bank at all, which sounds pretty irresponsible until you consider all the folks that lost their savings with the stock crash. The phrase “nothing to lose” sure held its ground in our case. Work, however, was another story.

18. “So what is it you want?” I ask, getting another eyeful of how filthy he is. “I got no cash to give you—not even a five spot. What’s worse, I’m trying to think up something good for the publisher, or else the water won’t get paid and the city’ll shut it off.”

19. Hal sighs at me and I continue. “They already shut off the heat. And if I can’t bathe, I’ll end up looking like you.”

20. I can’t help but chuckle at myself, but Hal here doesn’t think it’s too funny.

21. “Just let me stay a few nights,” he pleads, and I can tell he didn’t have to swallow too many slices of humble pie to get that one out of his mouth. I tell ya, no dignity whatsoever. Nothing but a grifter.

22. After a minute or two of hesitation, I nod my head and stand aside so he can walk past me into my cracker-box living room before I have the chance to change my mind. He seems grateful, I suppose, but then he turns up his nose like something died in here, scowling at the mess of crumpled papers lying all over the floor as if I’m supposed to do something about it—as if this is some kind of hotel. Forgive me, Prince Hal. Or should I call him Henry?

23. My brother and I basically don’t speak for the rest of the evening, and what was a light snowfall this afternoon now turns into a heavy rain and makes a loud, tinny sound when it hits my roof. I hand Hal the other half of my soup, reluctantly, and still don’t say a word and neither does he, and the next thing I know he’s out cold on my sofa where that darned cat used to sleep before she ran away. She must’ve realized I wasn’t going to be able to feed her and moved on to greener pastures.

24. I try to work on my writing but I get nowhere, and I don’t know how much time has gone by. I ignore the hunger pains and the fact that my eyes are burning and try to concentrate but the clock catches my attention.

25. It’s three thirty in the morning. Hal is snoring, which doesn’t help my increasing anxiety about my rapidly approaching deadline. Even if he could just snore in rhythm, rather than that off-meter grumbling, it wouldn’t be half as bad.

26. I don’t know what I’m going to do about my work. Nothing comes to me. Some days, things just jump right out of the air and into my head. Other times, I feel like I’m chasing spirits. It’s like the subjects are living, breathing things, with hearts and souls . . . and intentions. If they intend to be found, they’ll find you; otherwise, you’re left alone (well, except for your worthless brother) in a dark house with a live-in rat and hardly any food. It’s like the ideas are born into the world just like people, just like animals, or inventions; and should you be so fortunate as to be the doctor that guides them into being, your life is one truly touched. This theory leaves me hopeless, though, because I can’t just wait around for the next ingenious thought to be born—but, I might be able to get a previous birth mother to bear another idea.

27. So I go to my book of ideas, where I write those little sparks I get when I’m out in public—which isn’t often—or when the brightness of the sun touches me in a particularly inspiring way. I rustle through the pages, and I think I’m on to something. I’ve got 1200 words on the Roman Empire from when I went to the library last month, and the beginnings for a story about the scandals and mysteries of Emperor Leo VI. Who doesn’t enjoy a good, historical fiction mystery based on true findings?

28. But then I remember what my publisher said about little-known figures in history, and I think of the wastebin overflowing with similarly failed plans. Pacing back and forth with the book, I find another page from a time when I walked through the park—a rare occurrence, as I’ve implied—and I saw an old man sitting under a cherry tree and I wondered what he was thinking, and then I got the idea to write about the inner thoughts of a troubled old man whom, to everyone else, appears unnaturally quiet and reserved.

29. But then I remember how a twelve-page dead end about the “secret confessions of a sad, mentally unsound, young girl” sits dustily on my crooked shelf, and I worry that the old man would just be a useless repeat.

30. I keep pacing, because this usually helps. Medical people would say it keeps the blood flowing to your head, and that has something to do with how a person thinks. I speak aloud what’s on my mind, and I gesture a lot. My brother doesn’t stir. I keep talking to myself, asking myself questions to try and provoke a topic. I do this a lot.  

31. When that doesn’t work, I usually resort to scribbling miscellaneous thoughts and topics on paper, only now I’m all out because I tried that yesterday and ended up with three new novel introductions and consequentially three more dead ends. Plus I had to burn some of that paper for heat, which lasted less than thirty seconds and then I had to clean up the mess of ashes. And with that I realize how, even when I do come up with something—and I will—I won’t have anything to type it on. So I go to the window to mope.

32. I look out into the woods and I see a crow fly by and it reminds me of a bird I saw once in a moving picture. Strange picture, it was, as I recall. The characters were making a picture, themselves. How wacky is that? To make a picture about making a picture? It’s downright pointless is what it is. Who’d pay money to see that? And then it hits me: I did. In fact, so did a lot of other folks. It occurs to me that that picture probably made a pretty good deal of money, and I start to think up other places where I might have seen this kind of cleverness.

33. “That’s right,” I think to myself out loud. “I knew that dame in Trenton who wrote music . . . said she couldn’t think what to sing about, so she sung about how hard it was to find the right words.” Only by words, she meant lyrics. She sung about singing—about having nothing to sing.

34. “Say!” I almost shout, and Hal rolls over like a dog, and drools about as much too. “Say, what if I were to write . . . about having nothing to write.”

35. I pick up a few balls of paper from under the table and flatten them out so I can type on the other side, but the crinkles are stubborn. I tug and rub as hard as I can until it’s good enough, pinching the misshapen paper into my typewriter, and I start writing about a guy who lives in a dark, ratty cottage who’s stumped for something to write. He’s got a brother, too, see, who comes and sponges off his wealth, which isn’t much more than a few breadcrumbs and some recycled pages.

36. In the end, though, he’s gotta come up with something—a solution to the writer’s block. Hmm.

37. Maybe after pacing, and scribbling, and rustling through pages and talking to himself, he’ll decide to write about a guy with nothing to write about . . .

38. And it’ll just go one forever.

39.

40.

41.

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