Writer’s Narcolepsy

The problem with attempting to keep current on a blog in tandem with a novel is not only do I need to find time write the book, but also schedule the time to write about writing the book. It’s all a bit exhausting, really. Lately, I find I’ve become a victim of what I would classify as literary narcolepsy. It’s not so much writer’s block, (I mean doesn’t one need to write first in order to actually suffer writer’s block? As Dorothy from the eponymous and inimitable Golden Girls rightly suggests to Blanche with her caustic wit, ‘otherwise we all have it?’) as it strikes before I’ve typed a single word, as I sit staring at the last paragraph penned days earlier and struggle the summon the creative juices to further a coherent narrative about May (my protagonist)and her struggle as a brilliant but conflicted trader in the City. My eyes glaze, lids grow heavy, the words on the screen blur. The next thing I know I’m startled awake by my baby crying or other such noise, neck stiff, corner of my mouth collecting drool and come to discovering a line of  jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj that goes on for a sometimes a whole page. Unfortunately this doesn’t count toward my paltry 1,000 word a day target now, does it?

Admittedly this habit is not strictly limited to writing alone in my little shoe box make-shift office at home, as I also suffered this condition on the trading floor. Without fail, 3pm rolled around, the scrolling headlines on my Bloomberg screen would become fuzzy and the next thing I know I feel the sting of a rubber band on my cheek and hear one of my traders sniggering. That was my cue for a Kit Kat or if it was a bit slow game of Spoof to see who would make the obligatory Friday afternoon McFlurry run. It was usually me. Hey, whatever gets the blood flowing, I say. That’s the problem of working from home, and I like to qualify what I’m doing as working minus that whole tedious ‘getting paid’ bit. There’s nobody to make a McFlurry run, but me. And those McFlurries were good.