Writer’s Block

Drumming my fingers quickly and in intensifying frustration, I look forward blankly. I am humming a random tune while staring at the monitor of George Mason University’s Gateway LE500 series computer with a Pentium III processor, but you probably didn’t want to hear that. I would like to be saying that I am typing up some original novel that will soon become a book one day, but I’m afraid that’s not true. I moan like a brain-dead zombie.

I only have one more day left to turn in a work of literature for anthology and all I have on this stupid Microsoft Word document is…nothing! Which I must add, is making me very angry.

I wonder what to type. I look at the eight other members of my group. I am in writing camp for the summer. My eighth grade teacher, Mrs. Martin, suggested that I go, and I did. Elise is to here too, writing a story about Final Fantasy Seven, some video game. Cathy is to my right, writing a story based on ideas a writer told us about. I can’t see anyone else’s computer down my row, but I can see that they have some text on the monitor!

I wonder what to write and I still can’t think up of anything! Maybe if I could just copy and paste some crap from my stupid novel at home, Falling: Feathers—which I am hoping that will some day get published—but no! We aren’t allowed to put in stuff that we have already written out of camp, which sucks. Now I just look at my stupid blinking cursor, which is just sitting there, as if waiting for me to type down some stupid words.

I wonder what everyone else is writing about. I don’t know how many minutes we have left, and I have to finish this thing today or the writing camp people will kill me! Well, they won’t actually kill me. The counselors here are pretty nice. They would probably just tell me to hurry up. Who cares? I need to finish this now!

An idea sparks into my mind like some college student here lighting up his lighter so he could smoke his Camel cigarette.

I’ll just write a story about not knowing what to write about! Ohhhh, yeah! That’s the master plan! (And I know that sounded really dumb, so don’t make fun of me.)

I look at my computer again. I know what I want to write; I just don’t know how to write it down! Now I am back to square one again, not knowing what to write. Stupid writers’ block! I hope it burns! Death to all writer’s block! Death to it all!

I save my blank document on a disk that our counselor, Jody, gave me. This stupid Gateway takes forever to save a stinking document. It better not make incredibly huge files either, or else I will break this stupid disk into smithereens.

ARGH! I still don’t know what to write! Time is running out and I still don’t have a stinking story—oh wait a second, we still have thirty minutes left. Who cares? I still don’t have a stinking story to write!

Then, a little idea pops into my mind. I’ll just write about what I am doing right now, and then hopefully it will take up space. I start typing down at random intervals.

Karissa now looks at my document. She is sitting next to Cathy. She is saying that I have written a lot for typing only in Verdana in ten-point sized font. Elise is saying that this is funny and that I should turn this in. Cathy looks at my document periodically, and she has a lot done on her story too. I glance around the computer lab. Everyone around me seems to have a lot done. They are going onto their second pages now. I look at my stupid Microsoft Word document; I am going onto the second page too.

I stare at the clock. I only have twenty minutes left.

I can’t get off of the stupid page one! No matter how much I continually keep typing, the document’s page just keeps scrolling down and down and down, and it never stops going down and off the page. It’s like the Energizer Bunny reborn.

Five minutes have passed already, and now I have just hit page two. This is so boring. I wish I could have thought up of some other idea, now that I look at the stupidity of this one, but tomorrow we have to read our stories in our groups and then aloud in front of the whole writing camp. I don’t want to write anything overly cryptic or violent.

I spin around in my swivel chair like some kind of crazed maniac. I can’t think of anything else to write and now we only have ten minutes left. This super duper sucks! And I wish this stupid little button with some freaky-looking, Seneca-Ridge-Middle-School-rip-off-of-a-thunderbolt would stop appearing in front of my text, causing me to type blindly.

Elise grabs my keyboard and writes down this message to a mad scientist from Final Fantasy Seven. I guess it is supposed to be some kind of writing prompt. It reads:

“This is a message from Elise. HOJO IF I SEE YOUR SMARMY LITTLE FACE EVER!!!! I AM GOING TO RIP IT OFF!!!!!!!!”

She needs anger management classes, oh yes, she does. But that still doesn’t help me write anymore to my story. I glance at the clock again. We only have five minutes left of writing camp for the day, and I still haven’t wrapped up my stupid story! I can’t wrap up any story! I always mess up at the end, after a good body, and introduction… If I were a bird or something, I would be perfect at taking off, and flying to my destination, but landing, I would look like a falling atomic bomb about to hit the earth and cause a cataclysmic explosion!

Aw, snap! Jody just told us it is time to wrap it up! I still don’t have an ending. What should I type? What should I type? She is telling everyone to save the documents and exit off the computer. Tomorrow we are going to print these out and I will be the only one without a stinking ending to this totally hopeless piece of literature you want to call a story! How do you like them apples?

Everyone seems to have exited out except for me. I know I have to do it quickly, but I still don’t have a conclusion. And now I wonder how I got into writing camp without even knowing how to write a stupid story.

Jody is telling me to shut down for the day! Well, I guess I have to do what I am told. I guess I will be the only person in writing camp without a stinky ending to three pages of me just blabbering on and on without knowing what to write! I hope you’re happy, Jim! (He’s the head honcho.)

I move my mouse up towards the “File” button on Microsoft’s drop-down menu. I scroll down, seeing the words “Save”. I click it, wait almost an hour (well, I wish I could say an hour; it was actually a couple of seconds) for it to save, and then I scroll down to this little button all the way at the end of the menu that says “Exit”.

I start to apply pressure to the mouse.

Well guys, this is the end of me. I hope that no one will be mad at my lame excuse of writing. Maybe I can ditch out of writing camp at the last moment. Maybe…when my mom drops me off, I can just run away to another part of George Mason University, and people will think I am absent! Maybe I can…

I fully press down on the mouse; the “Exit” sequence is triggered.

Time is running out.

Time is running out!

Time is running—