Like the Negev of writing

Tonight I delivered the first half of the next issue of 100 Girls to Todd Demong. This after months of not being able to write a word. Or at least that's how it felt. I wrote several drafts of this script previously and threw them all away. But I like this version, and I can see the rest of the issue fairly clearly in my imagination; always a good sign.

I go through these periodic spells of writer's block (or writers insecurity, more like it) and I try to think about what I once heard William Stafford say at a reading. Someone asked him what do you do when you don't like anything you write? Mr. Stafford's answer: "I lower my standards."

I don't really have any tricks for getting through it myself, except for getting through it. When I'm in the middle of bout of writer's block, I feel like T.E. Lawrence slogging across the Negev desert. I just plod on long enough and eventually I come out the other side.

Hopefully there will continue to be another side to these things.

The bright spot here is that this version of the script came easily, I enjoyed writing, and I liked the end product. To quote Lawrence: "We've taken Aqaba."