Writing is Hard

Writing is hard. I know you are all probably too aware of this, but I would just like to state it for the world to know. This is not an easy “hobby”, this writing thing, and man am I being reminded of this. As I mentioned in this post, I enjoy “having written” more than the writing process. I am not one of those ones who feel as though they would die if they didn’t express themselves with the written word. I think I could walk away tomorrow and lead a perfectly happy life. That said, I do enjoy a challenge and writing (creating something from nothing) is about a tough a challenge mentally as I can come up with.

I’m pretty sure the difficulty I’m having right now is because I jinxed myself in this post: Writer’s Block. I don’t think I’m experiencing writer’s block in the normal sense, more like the type described in this post on the blog Quantum Storytelling.

Anyhow, I’m working through this and I think I’ll be OK. I’m writing a little bit at a time, reading some short stories for ideas, and researching “pacing” on the internet. Oh, and I’m trying to avoid the television.

Karate Kid Ate My Homework

I was able to do a little writing yesterday, but not very much. I posted a sequel to one of my stories on the Ficlets website, so I was happy about that. You can read it here: Fender and Grunk. I planned on going home and working on my Machine of Death short story, but that unfortunately did happen.

First of all, my normal routine was disrupted because I had to fast for some blood work I was having done for a new life insurance policy. I didn’t eat from 3:00 to about 8:00 (after my daughter’s bath), so I was pretty hungry when my daughter finally went to bed. At 8:00 I walked downstairs, heated up my food, and made a fatal mistake (fatal to my writing that is, obviously I’m not dead): I turned on the television. There before me was one of the greatest films ever made. That’s right, I’m talking about The Karate Kid.

The Karate Kid, for those who are unfamiliar with this great movie, was a film released in 1984 starring the legendary Noriyuki “Pat” Morita and the even more legendary Ralph Macchio. The Karate Kid taught us the important life lesson of how to get a naive teenager to remodel your house under the guise of “karate training”, though I shouldn’t knock Miyagi’s methods too much as he did teach Daniel enough for him to win the “All Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament”.

Anyhow, though formulaic, The Karate Kid will always have a place in my heart. I’m a sucker for feel-good, little guy wins movies, and this one should be listed in the dictionary under those terms.

For those of you who are Karate Kid fans, I have come across some cool stuff related to the movie in the past month. First of all, a band released a song titled Sweep the Leg and got the movie’s villain Johnny (Billy Zabka) to direct the video. The video is pretty entertaining and actually features cameos from a bunch of actors from the original movie, including Ralph Macchio at the end. The second item I saw was the Cliffs Notes on the Karate Kid by Cracked magazine. Pretty funny stuff.

Anyway, you can’t really blame me for not writing last night, right?