Dear Writers Block,

I am writing you to ask to to please stop lurking around. You could say your old friend of mine. The kind of friend who follows you like a stalker. I am sure that there is something important and great welling up inside of me, but it's blocked by all this empty white space lodged in my brain. So in my darkest hour I am forced upon my last option: writing prompts. Am I a cheat... or just resourceful. I swear half the prompts have something to do with an elevator. Trapped in one, forced in one, giving birth in one. What is so great about elevators? A crummy confined space. There isn't anything interesting about small spaces. They are just too small and purposeful, there is no room to run and be random and turn it into whatever you want. I have ridden in elevators several times and I can assure you that the most interesting character I have uncovered has been the man in the floor above who talks loudly with his partner about the T.V he watched that week, usually spoiling the ending of CSI.

While I was searching I found this one story called "love Forever". Already I knew it would be awful, I only continued reading because of the suspected hilarity of the inevitable awfulness ahead. So the narrator opens up describing the characters. A girls with "creamy chocolate hair" and "cherry red lips" with "milk white skin". if there is one thing that angers me, it's when authors use all those food references. It sounds like they are preparing to eat their characters rather then introduce me to them. Plus, this whole "chocolate brown thing." That simile is used too much, if I had a penny for every time I read the words "chocolate brown." What about all the other brown things? Little woodland creatures and hardwood floors. Dead grass and murky water... I mean I think that "woodland creature brown" sounds very becoming. And don't get me started on the old cliche of "milk white." Now what about "piano key white" or "syrup-less snow cone white"... so much more interesting aren't they! Also the entire "pretty main character" thing. I really don't care about the beautiful maiden with flowing hair, I don't know about you but I will go for the story about the girl with the crooked smile and uni-brow.

Another thing is commas. I never understood them. Such deceptive, evil little things. Some writers I think sprinkle them over their work when their done for a little extra love. The only thing worse is the semi-colon. I could care less if the colon and the comma had a lovechild, just keep it out of my sight and out of what I read... I mean does anybody even really know what that thing is? You don't want to see me when my nifty little spell check pops up and suggests a semi-colon. You can hear my groaning from upstairs.

Oh god. I am at the point. the point ware you are almost done with what you are writing. When you look back up at what you have written, a few measly, malnourished paragraphs riddled with fragments, runons and comma splices... oh the misery. Well my friends, it's only upwards from here...almost through. I hope you are cheering for me since I'm suddenly doubting whether I will be able to make it.

There are also the awful dedications. nothing puts a bad taste in your mouth before you even start reading like a cheesy dedication. The worst are the big, happy general ones. Like "to all those who have every dreamed a dream" or "to everyone who has had their heartbroken" or even the dreaded "To all those who thirst for adventure." Just as bad is the signature. It's my pet peeve when authors sign their middle initial. I guess some think that Emily, P. Jordan sounds European and sophisticated, while I just think it sounds like the name of a whiny British school girl.

Goodness, anything more to rant on? I think I have covered all the bases.

-not so fondly,

Reed W.