This essay is about how hard it is to write essays with something like a mental engine knock; which is not a great analogy, since the engine doesn't often change paths like a woman in a shoe store; which is also a very moronic thing to say, because women will take offense, and when they do, you're a pariah like the guy who told a black joke in earshot of Jesse Jackson, which earned him scorn and hate mail the size of Mount Everest. But I digress.

Always ask yourself: What's the subject I'm writing about? Like the constant running narrative in your head you've accumulated since the first day you smote your sibling upside the head with your rattle, that goes: "Thou shall not do drugs, talk back to your elders-unless you're Jon Stewart-divide by zero, date-rape, fornicate with an animal, torture animals with illegal CIA methods, tattle, spin a roulette wheel in most states, play Russian Roulette with a machine gun, or dance under the pale moonlight with an unchaperoned female date at prom." And so on and so forth, ad nauseum, ad agency, ad-in.

But I digress.

Anyway, I suppose you're wondering if this is the crux of creative spirits. I'm just guessing. The pencil is flying across the page and all I can think of is a nice beef burrito with melted cheese in a crisp wrap. I wonder if there'll be corn. Corn corn corn! Kaw! Nevermore.(Game of Thrones reference)

The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe, is unique and great—a real classic. I've never anything with the same near-mad rhythm. Funny, it took the idleness of prison to appreciate poetry. I blame Dan Simmons' Hyperion. The Canterbury Tales and John Keats IN SPACE! Brilliant! Who'd athought?

What, did we loop back to something? That's your Zen; your inner, subconscious, badass little literary fairy that wails, "Oh, this shall all come together as if divinely planned!" Over-worked, nagging bitch. Yeah, I said it! What are you gonna do, writers block me again? I have the pencil, you junky.

Was that weird? It's very weird. Say to your psychologist one day: "A little voice urges me to write stories where people get their ironic comeuppance, and I cannot resist. It's a compulsion." See what happens. They'll probably go into their covert federal networks and red flag you to the Secret Service: "Potentially unhappy citizen. Very UnAmerican Scary."

And then the super-secret men show up in one of those black trucks that EVERYONE knows on sight, and you say, "Honest, gentlemen, I'm just a writer. I just thought it was funny when George W. Bush choked on a pretzel. Hey-what? Where are we going?" And then the plot takes a strange twist…

THE END