Kaetlin Perna
November 2, 2006

I've been asked by a handful of people, "how do you write" as in, what is my technique. Ideas; forming words, phrases and eventually a conclusion: this is my formula. I take an idea I've thought about for more than 30 seconds and I dwell on it for a bit, then leave it on the backburner for awhile. "What makes a groupie? What is passion? Why do people allow themselves to be cokeheads?" All good thoughts with well written explanations but with no clear and concise conclusion. I've started pieces based on those ideas but typically end up with three paragraphs. How long is three paragraphs, you ask... maybe if I'm lucky, 150 words. Mulling over and over and over again these three paragraphs but with no avail. This, my friends, is what I like to call: writer's block.

For me, a few things that cause this difficulty are the same problems that cause a bad sex life. Lack of passion, too stressed out, busy, another notepad and/or word processor in your life are all equal factors to writer's block. Right now, it has been two weeks since I picked up a pen, and I had to force myself to grab my notepad (of course, it's the wrong one, this is my comedy notepad I'm writing on), grab that pen, clear some time, sit down, and... .write. Okay, I'm sitting here, at a kitchen table, with a blue pen, a notebook - I should get water, too. What the hell? I should be writing but I'm procrastinating. Ah... procrastination - writer's blocks' asshole cousin. He tempts me with MySpace, drugs and the occasional syndicated television show. Okay, okay - I'll hunker down and do it.

"I've always wanted to be wondered about in my technique in writing." No, that sucks. "Writing: An insanity that racks my brain in the most desperate of times." Too melodramatic. "Blah. Blah, Blah, Blah - Blah Blah." There we go. The opening line - the lead - the most important part of any piece. Novelists struggle with it, journalists pull their hair out over it (as they do with anything that bothers them) and amateur columnist/humorist/essayist/wannabe writers lament over it. It's the first impression, the icing on the cake, and what will sell your piece to whomever is reading it. I luckily don't struggle in writing leads, I studied journalism (sort of), I'm semi-naturally talented in this, but a bad lead can make or break a writer if it doesn't sound right to themselves, let alone their audience. (This is where being neurotic plays in, by the way). If it doesn't sound right to me, it won't sound right to anyone else- this is what plays in my head constantly.

Constantly second guessing, checking punctuation to make sure the delivery and pacing is correct, wondering if Paul Haggis (writer/director of Crash) is reading this and critiquing what he is reading, does it make sense, is what you are trying to convey to the audience being conveyed, and constantly, and I stress constantly, second guessing yourself. Through the neurosis is found a focus to express the right thought, that is if you're able to. When distracted by these concerns, I can't concentrate on an idea. When I can't concentrate, I procrastinate, and when that happens, I don't write at all, leading me to where I am now: Blocked.

What was the point to begin with? The idea; there is nothing that says it can't be rewritten at anytime. Start from scratch, clear the board, and shake the Etch-a-Sketch. To circumvent my block, I talk about it, a lot, to other people, more than likely writers in another field. It helps and it gets ideas flowing, even if they are crappy ideas, it's something! A grad student who comes into the coffeeshop that I work at was having a similar problem. She was getting so caught up in the details of a piece she was writing, she stopped writing it all together, and started something else. A week later, I asked her what happened to that piece she was writing, and she told me what happened and I said this to her, "just write you know, even if it's crap, it's something." But... what do I know? I'm blocked.

*From my new and very awesome zine "The Year of the Kaet: Confessions of a Bohemian Sellout."