We discover that the writer couldn't think of anything to write so he cheats

Some days the brain isn't on your side, it just isn't. You want to coax and cajole it tell it, come on buddy we're on the same team, we gotta do this okay, we can't just squander the spare time we may have gotten ourselves by some fluke because that time is meant for something else, to do interesting hobbies that are not writing, let's go, it won't listen. Blank out, deadzone, no hint or clue. You think, oohh I'll write about this, or ooh I'll write about that, but no go bromigo, no go, there's nothing there but sadness and disappointment. Alas.

So you begin thinking, maybe there's a way I can leverage this emptiness into something good, after all is not an empty mind a devil's workshop? Surely Devil, being the man of taste and...abilities...has his workshop well-stocked with the requisite tools and materials, it's not like an empty room where one goes to shout probably. All you need to do are to identify what the tools are and what you're going to do with them. Learn the configuration to the Devil's 3d printer (that just sounds like shitting, pardon the scat joke) and get things moving. Una problema though, you've never really been into a real workshop like at all since college and you don't know what you're looking for. Like Hammer and nails yeah you know, what are you gonna do with them though, destroy the workshop?

That's no good, so you try to come up with an angle. What if this was a self-referential piece about how hard it is to come up with a 'personal piece' on demand these days because not much is happening in your life, or in anybody else's life for that matter, and the brutally honest self-revelatory pieces have gone by the by. Besides you've done all the easy low-hanging ones and the toughies need more work, more thought, they're not something you'd bash out in fifteen minutes and jump into something else soon after. Add to that the guilt of having done two 'top x lists' both low-effort, so there's a certain desire to do better this time because that's not what you want for your life do you? The market's not so great for quiz writers for magazines, we live in a world very different to that of the Sex and the City unfortunately.

We come down to spinning some bullshit up, incessant mentions of what's going inside your head and how it's so hard to life, since nothing new's happening. You're not making any of that up, it's true absolutely true. The only tricky thing, perhaps slightly misleading, is there was never much going on with your life in any case was there? And you don't have to write about what's going on in your life at this very moment, on this very day, there are a tonne of topics to discuss and explore. How about the Singapore & Nepal trip from last year -- technically this year but feels like a thousand million -- that has so much meat to mention? Or the US trip from 2014 when you promised the readers of this very blog you'd do a detailed trip report, you could maybe start working on that. Or even, and hear me through this because the idea may sound wild, the Vegas and LA trip from less than three years ago, that's a lot more recent isn't it? An active ncurious mind has a lot of content to produce. A lazy one that wants to make excuses upon excuses, shows no real desire to grow or create will come with all ways to run away from the reality. This isn't real maaan, it'll say hiding within nonsensical pop culture references, hoping to distract the judge from what's happening underneath. Distraction techniques, these are all means to distract one from the real goal, to become a better writer write a lot and eventually come up with a book preferably a novel, or seven. We aren't getting there at this rate, are we?

One finds oneself in the position not very coveted, an honest evaluation of one's lofty goals and real abilities, an attempt to analyze if one's desperate writing habit almost flailing, that seems too needy if we're being honest, aligns with the dreams and hopes. Don't be quick to dismiss outright because it's not clear they are not perfect for each other. Because all roads lead to Rome if you're desperate enough to drink leadfull of water. What's the price you're willing to pay for it, that's the real question. What's the price you're willing to pay?