Writer’s Block

I can write about anything but my stories right now it seems and I am a little frustrated. I guess it’s a good thing that I can write at all and so I will try to focus on the up side, but I feel a little like I am screaming into a wormhole. Maybe there are people on the other side who are hearing me but I feel a bit alone here on the blog. I have my loyal commenters and they help, but the anonymous come and read? and go without a sound, just a click of the counter. Maybe it is feed back I am missing? Maybe I should start a page for a piece of fiction? But I worry about exposing my fiction to the web on my own because my publishers consider stuff on blogs as having been previously published which is ironic since they don’t give you writing experience credit for being a blogger in the first place.

I still haven’t heard back on any of the stuff that is out and the superstitious side of me thinks it is because I haven’t gotten my residency card or a work permit yet. If I had one or the other, things would start to happen. I have gotten my first approval and Rob sent in the fee for my work permit which I should have by the end of this month or beginning of the next. The PR card itself is waiting on an FBI fingerprint background check. We didn’t do that back in October because it wasn’t clear that CIC wanted both that and a state check. Another example of how badly worded the application directions are. They have been sent and will take about a month to get back. Add to that another month for CIC to get the results and process them and we are now looking at June for residency at the earliest. Frustrating. 

My mood of the day is frustrated. It’s not spring. I can’t focus to write really. I feel fat. My child is crabby. And the coyotes are too afraid of Cat to eat her like we hoped they would. Seriously, we have a Cat that is too feral to keep indoors but too tame to dump in the woods and a fields all around us stocked with coyote. Since it has been warm, Cat has been living outdoors instead of in the garage and not one blessed thing has happened to her expect perhaps she is keeping the coyotes away from our yard. I kid you not, even the toms in the neighborhood are afraid of her, so the idea that she would frighten wilder animals is not that far-fetched.

Jordan was home for supper last night. She brought her “friend”. He is an ex-boyfriend whom I am not fond of simply because of the things that Rob and Farron have related to me. Jordan has a way of attracting decidedly off-beat, and in need of social skills, young men. She was telling us about the latest to be attracted to her, a young man with two inoperable brain tumors who works at the liquor store with her. He has attached himself to her like an extra appendage and she is too polite to reclaim her space. And it’s not just the brain tumor. She would feel sorry for him regardless because he is just one of those people who appears to have been raised by wolves but probably just had your average two people who shouldn’t have ben parents upbringing that so many of us get stuck with. Except that most of us survive that and he didn’t. The brain tumors are just icing on this rather untasty cake.

Katy was quite taken with Jordan’s friend because he played games with her before dinner. She gets so excited when either of the older girls comes to visit but she doesn’t understand that they are much too old to be the sisters that she longs for. Jordan’s friend promised to play games again after dinner but instead sat at the table chatting – as adults are wont to do. After a while of waiting patiently in the living room, she ran upstairs and burst into tear. I went up and comforted her. Her feelings were hurt and it’s hard to explain to her that she just isn’t going to have a sister kind of relationship with Jordan or Farron or anyone they bring home. That is just something she will have to learn over time. There is too much of a gap and despite their willingness, neither of the older girls is going to be able to bridge it given the short amount of time Katy sees them and that will likely only get worse as they get older too.

Environment Canada promised sun today and it’s 2:30 and only just peeking. I am trying to be patient but I want spring. I want warmth and sun and dry.

9 thoughts on “Writer’s Block

  1. Nah, I just can’t get excited about the whole submission/rejection process. Not excited enough to do anything about it. Sometimes I think about it, but most of the time I’m content with self-publishing on the web. I’m still carrying around the website info, though, so perhaps I’ll get off my duff one of these days and make the effort. It probably won’t hurt too much. :o)

  2. Oh, Girl, I am sorry. I did get that. It was over holiday and I thought I’d replied. It seems I did not. I knew about Helium though. Some of my writing group members write there. Thanks for thinking about me however. Have you put a piece there?

  3. I’m on the other side of an enormous sibling age gap — my half-sister is 19 years younger than me, and coincidentally named Catie — and it does get more equal over time. You’re right, though: it never really becomes a sibling relationship. My sister is 17 now, and we get along fine and enjoy our visits, but neither of us would ever think of contacting the other independently; our only relationship is through our shared parent. It’s unfortunate, but the gap is just too big for anything else.

  4. I hope you got the e-mail I sent you regarding publishing opportunities. I sent it to the e-mail account listed on your comments.

  5. Damyanti, thanks for the encouragement. Ironically I do not lack for ideas but nothing is coming out right and my words are just limping along when it comes to the fiction side of things. But I keep writing just anything because I know it will come back. Sometimes I need to curse a bit figuratively speaking.

    Pammy, I thought from Mike’s comment that might be you. oops. Thanks for the encouragement on the immigration thing.

  6. Hi Annie,
    I loved your description of your writers block as that of screaming into a worm hole. it is so apropo.

    Hang in there, Mike and I went through the immigration/right-to-work process about a year ago, was like fingernails on a blackboard -IRRITATING slow fingernails on a black board.

    oh and PS the.. errr…ample piccie on my blog is NOT me lol…much as I wish it was, I am pretty um…40something average in that area.

  7. Hi Annie, hope you feel better soon. Frustrated is my mood of the moment too, but you wouldnt know it from my blog.

    I have decided to make lemonade when handed a lemon in life….*sigh*

    Take care, and keep writing!

  8. Thanks Karen. That piece is an important one to me personally but didn’t get many views so it is nice to know that someone read it and liked it.

  9. Hi Annie, I wanted to let you know that your entry on April 5, 2008, titled, “The Journey of my Soul” was one of the best written blog entries I have read. Your writing is interesting and honest. And if you don’t mind, it reminds us of how we and our families are all dysfunctional in some remote way. I hope that I may be one of the “old souls” you discuss. Best regards, Karen R.

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