Writer's Block

Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

Writer’s Block

The one big advantage a piece of paper has over the
computer screen is that when you get halfway down the
page and realise that this is the very, very worst
thing you've ever written you can rip the sheet from
your pad, screw it into a tight ball and throw it at
the waste bin with the righteous fury of the tortured
artist.

That's just not cost effective with a Packard Bell.

I'd felt "The Block" building for a few days now, I'd
been trying to write histories for the Vijayanagara
Empire and the Republic of Sinhapur for Mosaic Earth,
I knew what I wanted to write and how the finished
countries should look, even what their worlds would be
like but I just couldn't make the pieces fit. I
shouldn't be surprised by that though, it's a problem,
the problem, that I encounter most often while
writing. I'll know precisely what I want to say in a
story and I'll have no idea how to get there. It's
exactly the same with the Franco-Austrian Land Warfare
Thingy for Grey Wolf's board. I know what the world
of 1944 looks like but when it comes to the tedious
business of thinking out the background for the
preceding hundred years. Well let's just say I'd
rather spend twice as much time and effort avoiding
doing the research as doing it.

And then there was the One Thousandth Post.

I knew it'd been coming up for a while but then all of
a sudden I was eight away from it. I could just have
breezed right thought it by writing something normal
and trivial. Most of the others do. But that's them
not me.

First I thought I'll post my remaining SME countries
all in one go.

But that wasn't happening.

Then I considered doing a major and innovative
timeline.

I got to the end of the sentence before remembering my
success rate for those.

So finally I got to the one thing I do even remotely
well around here. Fiction.

Which is where we came in I believe.

I looked at what I'd written so far and sighed.

"Well at least it can't get any worse."

"I can't believe you said that."

I spun in my chair and looked at the intruder. He was
a handsome devil, I'll give him that. Clean of limb,
keen of eye and with a face that radiated strength of
character and an inner nobility that..

Well to cut to the chase, it was me.

"Gaaagh" I said.

"Very articulate" I said.

"nnnnnnnnnnnnn" I elucidated.

"Are you going to recover the power of speech any time
soon?" I asked myself.

"......" Which I thought was positively Shakespearian
under the circumstances but which didn't impress me in
the slightest.

"Look" said the me who wasn't experiencing major
psychological trauma "I'm not your long lost twin
brother recently escaped from a mental hospital come
to kill you and steal your identity, or a pod person
or a doppelganger from some twisted hell dimension.
I'm you from an Alternative Earth."

During my other self's little speech my ever ready
temper had finally decided to do something useful and
had kicked in. This smart arsed git had coming
swanning into my home and was now acting all superior.
Well I wasn't impressed. I knew I could take him. I
knew all his moves.

"You don't look very alternative" I said. This was
true, he was wearing the same outfit of khaki short
shelved shirt, jeans and black trainers as I was.

"Take a closer look at the shoes" he said.

I did. He was wearing my, or rather his, new black
trainers. I glanced down at my feet. I was wearing
black trainers too. But they were my older, more
battered pair.

"That's the thing with Alternate Earths, most of them
aren't really that alternate" The other me said.

"Because while even the smallest event has multiple
outcomes some of those outcomes produce changes that
have absolutely no effect on the rest of the world" I
said.

I nodded in agreement with myself. "That's right"
said the me in newer footwear, "People think that only
the Big Events occur differently on other worlds but
every single possible action has an myriad of
different results, some of which are so similar to
each other that they can't be told apart even if you
devoted the planet's entire scientific resources to
monitoring them".

"Like if a leaf falls from a tree a nanosecond earlier
or later?" I said.
"Absolutely correct" The alternate me replied "We
like to say that a butterfly flapping it's wings can
change the world but in terms of producing Alternate
Earths it's just as likely that all you'll get is a
very small breeze".

"And that's just the events on Earth".

I and me both started and spun to look at the
newcomer.

It was of course me.

"Let me guess" I said "Different underwear".

"Left handed" me3 said holding up the appropriate
appendage and wiggling it's fingers.

"What you're saying is that alternate outcomes to
events don't just occur on Earth I take it" Said me2

"It's easy to explain this sort of stuff to yourself,
you always get the idea first off" Me3 said with a
smile. "Why should alternate history be limited to
Earth" he continued, "Why not alternate Mars or
Jupiters, just because there's no one to see them
doesn't mean things don't happen there as well as
here".

"There could be a race of sentient methane breathing
octopuses on the other side of the galaxy writing how
the world would be entirely different if the thirteen
colonies had won their revolution against the Zarglax
Empire for all we know" I said.

"There are an infinite number of possibilities" Me2
said.

"Only there aren't".

You know by this point you'd think we'd be used to
this.

Still this new visitor was definitely more alternative
than the rest of us and at least we could easily see
where her Earth diverted from the rest of ours.

"Well it's only one chromosome" Me4 said.

"You were going to tell us how there aren't an
infinite number of alternate universes" Me3 said.

"Only of course we know that already" Me2 added.

"But I think you should get to say your piece anyway,
it's only fair" I finished.

Me4 smiled sweetly, "Thank you" she said. "Well as we
all know while people always talk about an infinite
number of alternative realities that is in fact
impossible because only a finite number of events has
occurred".

"It is a very big finite number however" The rest of
me said simultaneously.

"Right, in fact it probably does a better job of
looking like infinity than infinity does itself but
it's still a finite number" Me4 said.

"But what about the really important thing?" Said
Me5.

I looked at the preceding three pages of writing.

Then I looked at my empty waste paper basket and
meditated on nature's abhorrence of vacuums.

Then I pressed Ctrl and A.

Then I reached for delete.

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