I took on a new writing gig and immediately slipped into an acute case of writer’s block.
Source Media Properties has long been after me to write for them. Truth be told, they’d long been after me to stop being a cheapskate and subscribe. So they threw in a subscription if I agreed to write columns, features, an occasional operetta, and a check.
Friday, while 50-mph-winds hissed and clawed at the windows of my Mohican Forest studio, I came up with a scheme to break out of my writer’s block. For previous writing projects, I’ve gotten myself on track with the help of a storyboard.
The studio lends itself well to that. The late Diane Kaye used the space for painting and other artistic pursuits. She left behind pushpin panels covering the wall from floor to ceiling. It’s festooned with hundreds of pinholes, stray brush strokes, paint splatters, and what I suspect are blood stains from X-ACTO knife wounds.
My kind of décor.
I’ve taken to using Diane’s pushpin wall to storyboard writing projects. Which is similar to the process filmmakers use to arrange sketches captioned with notes and snippets of dialogue. It helps me organize my thoughts and create a logical flow to my writing. Things my brain is incapable of doing.
Friday — as pine boughs and an occasional disoriented squirrel pelted the deck outside my window — I stripped 3X5 cards off the wall from my last two projects and stowed the pushpins where I wouldn’t find them with bare feet.
I set up a video camera to record the process. To add a humorous touch I donned an orange jumpsuit with the word “INMATE” stenciled across the back. (It’s not the real deal, just an old Halloween costume. Honest.)
Then I took out a huge sheet of blank manilla paper and tacked it to the wall. I grabbed a Sharpie and scrawled across the sheet of paper “What do I want this to be?”
Beneath it, I wrote “FUN.”
Then I wrote down on 3X5 cards other things my writing for the Source should be: Stimulating, informative, inspiring, and — on rare occasions — a source of useful information.
I added another card upon which I’d jotted my personal expectations. “This gig should allow me to do what I love — travel, camp, canoe, explore, eat … ”
On another large sheet of manilla paper I wrote in bold letters “What I DON’T want this to be.”
Beneath it, I wrote “Drudgery.” Over and over again.
I see this gig as an opportunity to combine journalism, photography and humor to create something fresh and new — something, as I told my handler Hayden Gray, to complement what the Source already does and does well.
Plus, it helps that most of the Source’s coverage area includes Ashland, Richland and Knox counties, where I do most of my outdoorsy stuff.
The Source recently expanded to Delaware County. I don’t get down there often, but I have been known to paddle the Olentangy River. In fact, while on a solo canoe trip, I met the late Jym Ganahl. The TV weatherman was strolling along the banks of the Olentangy. We exchanged pleasantries, none of which had anything to do with the weather.
As I was plastering 3X5 cards to my storyboard, the lights went out. I headed to the utility room to crank up the generator. Unfortunately, the battery had writer’s block too. So I raised the garage door by hand, pulled my truck out and — in effect — jump-started the house.
Then I drove down the road to see whether falling branches or trees had taken out the power lines.
When I got to the end of the road, a mile from the house, I noticed my neighbor out and about. I pulled over to see whether his power was out. It was.
Probably a good thing I hadn’t gotten out of my truck to ask him. He might have noticed the word “INMATE” stenciled on my orange jumpsuit.