I can’t write. Not in the “tortured artist staring out the window at the rain” sort of way, but in the way where you sit down, full of good intentions, and realize the words, which used to show up like old friends with stories to tell, now skitter off to some dark corner of my mind, leaving me alone with the blinking cursor and a growing sense of betrayal.

I think they’ve gone on strike, my words. And to be honest, they’ve got a point. Conditions upstairs haven’t been great lately. My brain’s been dealing with a few… let’s call them “renovations.” There’s some obscure health thing—complicated, and utterly boring—that’s left my creative engine sputtering. If the words are feeling underappreciated, I get it. But they could’ve at least left a note on the fridge before vanishing.

The real problem is, writing has always been how I make sense of things. It’s been my way of untangling life, figuring out what’s important and what’s just noise. And now, just when life’s thrown me a few extra curveballs, the words have packed their bags and left me to sort through it all alone. It’s like being stood up by your therapist. “Sorry, can’t help today. Try deep breathing or herbal tea.”

As I drove home from work the other evening, I pondered those tall stacks of old screenplays and stage plays gathering dust in my close and wondered what they were for. Some of them were pure wild grabs for the spec screenplay money back when that was more of a thing. But others felt like they were gifts from the beyond. Grabs or gifts, they were now side-by-side on the top shelf collecting dust. What was the point of any of them, I wondered.

But then the thought occurred to me. Maybe those words weren’t meant for others. Maybe they were meant for me, like messages from Young Me in a long string bottles slowly drifting their way to Now Me’s desert island. What I’m supposed to learn from those words is TBD.

Of course, I realize this is veering dangerously close to writing about writing in order to write, which feels both self-indulgent and slightly ridiculous—like trying to start a campfire by rubbing two instruction manuals together. But what choice do I have? This might all crumble into a heap of clichés and self-doubt, further cementing my suspicion that I was never much of a writer in the first place. And yet, I’ll keep trying. And if it goes horribly wrong, I’ll just blame the nom de plume and walk away whistling all nonchalant-like.

Your friend,

Eugene