The Writers Who Never Write

From the age of 5, Douglas knew he wanted to be a writer. He was always lost in his daydreams imagining another world where anything was possible. Years later, Douglas still wrote daily, but his imagination had dwindled. In fact, he would start typing on his laptop and would stop mid-sentence, unsure of how or if to continue. Luckily, he and his other writer friends set up a support group for exactly this: writer’s block. They met every Wednesday at Bob’s house. They had been meeting consistently for two years now, none of the members exactly closer to finishing their books, or even starting for that matter.

This week, it was Douglas’ turn to lead the discussion. “I was thinking today we would work on sparking our imaginations. Let’s go around the circle and each say a sentence. By the end, we’ll have a story. I’ll start: my sentence is ‘The monkey escaped the zoo.’” There were some light chuckles from the group. Bob was next “I was driving down the street when I saw the gorilla coming towards my car.” Lee said, “Then an alien ship landed on my right.” Then, it was Bob’s turn again. “Honestly, I don’t like where this story is going. Maybe we should start over?” They all agreed. Then, Douglas said “Look at the time! It’s already been 30 minutes. This is a great place to pick up next time.” The group got up and went home, all of them oblivious to their shared lack of skills to be writers.