A Cure for Writer's Block

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. Of course, being a lazy dog, it lay there and ignored the whole undignified scenario. The brown fox, really more of a reddish colour, rolled her eyes...

"What a complete waste of time," Matthew Q. Stanhaus said. (The Q. didn't stand for anything, but his agent had told Matt that he should have an initial. It added class. What it didn't add was the ability to come up with a second story to match the first surprise runaway bestseller.)

"This isn't going to work"

"Sure it will," Bill said. "Free form writing always gets the juices flowing. All my authors get stuck, and this is how I get them going again. Give it time.”

“I haven’t got time,” Matt rubbed his eyes. “I need to have this first draft in to my editor tomorrow. “

“Then you had better get started.” Bill showed no mercy. He sat back with his coffee and waved at the keyboard. Matt grunted and started banging on the keys again.

“I am the quickest, baddest brown fox ever to run circles around any dog, lazy or no. In my corner of the jungle no one lays a hand on me. I don’t care if you are Cujo or a taco dog; you ain’t comin’ close to this fox….”

“That’s even lamer than the first one. All we need is someone singing about bluebirds to make it complete.” Bill didn’t respond other than by wiggling his fingers in typing motions. Matt howled in frustration and turned back to the keyboard.

These hounds weren’t lazy. They were all bark and growl and teeth. They had my scent and were in full cry. I needed to be better than quick if I wasn’t going to end up as their sacrificial fox. I ran and dodged through the concrete and steel that made up my jungle. I could hear them on my trail. Tires squealed and men shouted at each other. An occasional silenced shot buzzed past my ear. I was getting tired, and these dogs weren’t going to give up. They were getting paid to bring me down, and the people paying them didn’t care whether it was alive or dead….

Matt leaned back and groaned as his vertebrae crackled and popped.

“It’s trite.” He said. “The editor will probably laugh and throw it away."

“Let me worry about the editor.” Bill made more finger wiggling motions.

Matt muttered an obscenity, not quite under his breath, and returned to the computer.

Renard Brown staggered through the bayou. He could hear the hounds baying in the distance. A helicopter pounded almost overhead. He had no idea why he was here. One minute he was resting in his cell, the next guards were hustling him into a chopper.

“Shot while trying to escape.” The guard they called the Bear had grinned evilly at him.

“I’m not trying to escape,” Renard said, struggling against the guards holding his arms.

“You will.” The Bear laughed as he pushed Renard out of the chopper….”

Matt sat back and stared at the screen.

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why go through all the fuss of the chopper and dogs if they were going to kill him anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Said Bill. “You’re the writer. So write.”

Renard Brown was quick, but he was also smart. Even the fastest fox needed to go to ground once in a while. He needed to wait for that dog to get lazy again. He sat in his prison cell, pretending to read, while the guards walked by looking for some excuse to enforce the rules. There were a lot of rules…

“No, no, no.” Moaned the author. “That won’t work.” He cracked his back again, and looked at his agent. Bill was carefully not looking up.

#@$#@((*%(*@#$ Thought Fox Brown as he looked over his shoulder again. He had worked very hard to get arrested. Right now jail was the safest place for him. It wasn’t that Lupe didn’t have people on the inside, but they were lazy. They were up to a shiv in the lunchroom, or a bit of violence in the showers, but Lupe intended to keep him alive until he led her to what she wanted. So she had her pet D.A. cut him loose. If it was just money, Fox would have given it up a long time ago. He swore again as he spotted a couple of her hounds on his tail. It was time to get the jump on these dogs…

Smiling, Bill fell asleep to the music of rattling keys and the sotto voce muttering of Matthew Q. Stanhaus.