Writer's Block

A highly successful children's author falls to the ails of writer's block.

Writer’s Block

Inset:  A published children's author gets the break she needs to write in the genre she desires until tragedy befalls her.

 

Spot and I play. See Spot run. See spot jump. See Kim. Kim wants to play. See…  I placed my pencil in my mouth and began to chew. How did I ever get talked into writing this story?

Ever since I received a taste for short stories, I have hungered for the chance to become a nationally known writer like Stephen King, V.C. Andrews, John Saul, or perhaps even as prominent as Hawthorn or Poe…not some stupid children’s author like Dr. Seuss. Every adult who reads this story aloud to their child will wonder how low of an I.Q. a person would require to write a book of this nature.

I finished the story in record breaking time. Needless to say, it gave me no trouble whatsoever. I placed the story in my agent’s hands over a week earlier than he had expected. “Good work,” he exclaimed after reading the finished product. “Maybe this will finally get your name around some as I had hoped.”

It did. The critics raved and since my name spread like wildfire, calls were coming in from everywhere asking if I had any other material for them to sample.

All that I had were short stories I had written before I started working in children’s books. I saw my opportunity to inject my true literary talent and enveloped it. The stories I provided weren’t what the publishers expected, but the publishers served their purpose as connections and set me up with others in the market that dealt with my kind of work.

Calls came pouring in from every literary magazine imaginable asking me to write about several different experiences. I began my full-fledged career, writing all day and sometimes into the night. I used to enjoy writing, but after months of writing nonstop, I began to dread picking up my pencil and paper. No longer was I writing what I felt. I had become a slave to the literary world.

It started to be more difficult to reach the deadlines. Days started blending together. Every aspect of my being, every ounce of my energy went into my writing, but my emotions didn’t reflect what they should have and results weren’t happening in a timely manner. Two years passed without my acknowledgement, yet my dream had been reached. I was now a nationally known journalist although I was no longer happy.

As I sat down one last time with a pencil in my hand, I began to chew on the end. My mind began to race and the room began to turn circles slowly. I leaned back in my chair and gazed up at the ceiling as if I was looking directly through it to the stars above. The walls began to fade into black and seemed to be moving in toward me, suffocating me. The walls encircled my body and crushed my mind, leaving me in a world of nothingness.

Tuesday, June 10, 1975, after only two and a half years in her booming career, Cynthia Myers, famous for her thrilling short stories, was found dead on her living room floor this morning by the fire department who had been informed of a stench coming from Myer’s home. Autopsy reports stated that she had been deceased for nearly three weeks. Cause of death is reported as malnutrition and heart failure.

A pencil, gnawed to only a stub, was in her mouth when she was found. The pad of paper held close to her breast had one line of text scribbled on it, “SEE SPOT RUN.” To this day, only you know what those words meant to her.

 

Reviews

[Dave Lounsbury]

Very neat piece. Super original.

[clarie]

umm, good flow, quickly reduces the writing process to nothing. I believe in abc's. when all else fails. a friend of mine who was unable to read hated "see spot run". she'd get it.