Staring at an empty screen – trying to force the inspiration.

We’ve all done it (all us blogging community anyway).

You get an unnatural twitch of the eyes that takes you down to word count (34 by the way) in the hope that you’ve somehow – miraculously – done your quota.

I blame my childhood.

Actually it would be more correct (let alone use) if I expressed it as the issue may be traced to my childhood.

The main reason I ended up in sciences in my youth was an overwhelming loathing of the “essay” style questions of too much of the arts (99 words which is of course now 105).

That deep acid pit in the stomach when confronted with “Write 1500 words on” any topic you like…

I couldn’t have written 1500 words on, for argument’s sake, the War of the Roses if my bl00dy life had depended on it!

My life coach encourages me to self coach (it’s not something you only do in a private room btw).

So can I use this time to explore what the causes might be?

Probably not but it’s good for a laugh.

At this point I’m going to go for my walk.

It’s probably very windy so I’m taking the woolly hat which will mean I’ll do a passable impersonation of a scarecrow when I take it off.

Mind you I’d have looked the same if I’d just let the hair blow in the breeze so no real downside there 🤡🤡🤡

Well that didn’t happen…

Started to put the outdoor gear on, noticed the sky getting darker and darker and then the heavens opened.

Five minutes earlier and I would have been soaked!

So I sat in the lounge, grumpily completing an online verification process I’d been “saving for a rainy day” (groan 😝).

Sorry – couldn’t resist it.

So now it’s stopped, the sky is blue and I REALLY cannot be arsed.

Ah well.

So back to staring at an empty screen (or one with 327 words anyway).

Oh yes – self coaching.

And not only that but try to self coach while writing about self coaching.

Hmm.

It’s probably easier to think what it’s not.

Parents were not well off but there were always books and magazines and newspapers everywhere.

I’ve still got a book collection of several thousand items.

I still buy more books (or acquire free copies on Kindle) than I physically have time to read.

151 books unread on the app of which most were purchased at 99p or less.

So it’s not some sort of intimidation by the printed word.

And I do still prefer the written word to ‘talking’ books. I can choose to read them in whichever tone of voice I think is appropriate.

But stringing my own words together is where the issue arises.

Not helped at this precise moment by some gargantuan yawns.

I’ve tried writing a book in the past (not to mention -= technically – four on the way at the moment) normally with very little success.

A brain made for succinctness. Is there such a thing?

It does help that most eBooks do not need to be 100,000 words.

I must admit I don’t know the average length of a business eBook – but I do know someone who will.

But does this explain my displeasure at having to create 1500 word essays at school?

Probably not. If memory serves the teachers invariably dished these out on a Friday afternoon.

To be returned Monday Morning.

Probably just to p*ss off their long suffering students – or possibly as payback for what they’d had to put up with during the week.

Now there’s a thought…

And did you have the same issues on Monday as me?

Honest miss/sir, I did do my essay but the dog/chinchilla/gerbil/wallaby* ate it? (* delete as appropriate, okay I made up a couple of those.)

You’re right – we never had a dog 😂. Bless.

642 by the way. Or now 647.

So is it an us and them – scientist or arts?

In fact, of course, once you get to the higher echelons of science we find the dissertation – a novel lookalike of indeterminate length.

Albeit some of the sections of said dissertation are probably templates and don’t get me started about legal agreements.

When I first got started you could buy or sell a business with an agreement of maybe a dozen pages, even pretty big deals.

And then the lawyers got involved and started using these things called “precedents” and like Topsy (amazingly, in the spellchecker) the agreements began to grow.

And statutory accounts have gone the same way. For a major limited company from around a dozen to one or two hundred.

Synchronised backside covering in the main. Statutory figures are supposed to be a record of stewardship.

Most major limited companies have a management divorced from ownership of the business.

Therefore the aims of the board and the shareholders diverge – the shareholders may have a longer term viewpoint or maybe not, the board may be honest in their stewardship or maybe are just in it for what they can get.

So, to protect the guilty, you disclose everything and no one can find their way through the morass of fluff to find the bits that actually matter.

And when it does eventually go pear shaped people can point at other people and say there was full disclosure so it isn’t their fault!

And get paid shed loads of dosh and walk off into the sunset – and do it again somewhere else.

You cynic, you…

So we’re now miles away from why I could not write essays as a youngster and I’ve a blog of approaching a thousand words.

Sure beats staring at an empty screen!

And the moral of the story is always to write about something you are opinionated about – or find something to become so about.

S’life Jim but not as we know it. 👽👾

Think that’s going to have to do for this week.

Now to see if I can have a nap while she uses her sewing machine.

As they didn’t quite say in the film “Oliver” – wouldn’t it be wallaby… Image by LoneWombatMedia from Pixabay