Author's Note: One-shot. Mort's POV. The italics at the beginning are actually from the movie; I did not come up with it on my own. Thanks a bunch to my brother, Mark, for giving me the idea for the story "well, you can write about that. Write about having writer's block." So that's what I'm going to do. On with the story!
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Four days after George had confirmed to his own satisfaction that his wife was cheating on him, he confronted her. "I have to talk to you, Abby." He said. "I…
It was shit. It was too close to real life to be any good. I was writing about my own life, my own experiences, and my wife. It was something that I had not wanted to go through, so why should I put one of my characters through it? I highlighted the text on my computer screen and deleted it, never to be bothered again by my problems that could not be fixed. I leaned back into my wooden chair and realized how uncomfortable it was, that's probably why I liked it so much. I could take the laptop with me anywhere, yet I always sat at the desk. Old habits are hard to break.
Why should I write about my own experiences? Why write about what has already happened? What is in the past? Maybe it's because I've ran out of things to write. That's what happens, you pass a certain point and you just get blocked up. That is part of the curse of being a writer. Maybe it's an illness. Maybe there's a pill you can take for it. Ha. Like that could ever happen. Writing is something you have to feel, you have to get into, you have to be a part of. I used to get that feeling, but now I don't feel anything.
"I'm open to suggestions." I enlighten my dog, Chico. Yeah, sure Mort. Your dog can help you write a story. Your wife couldn't even help you, what makes you think your dog can? Hey. It doesn't hurt to ask. I know my dog can't talk, hell he can hardly see but maybe he could help me think of an idea, but then again maybe not. I don't write happy little children's books about talking animals living happily in a forest. I don't write fantasy. Well, you're thinking about getting back together with your wife if she ever leaves that bastard Ted, and you're telling me that's not fantasy? She's never going to give him up, so just forget about it.
That's when it all went downhill. The day I caught her fucking him at Irv's Lakeside motel. Six months ago. Six months, my life has gone from bad to worse. Six months. For six months I have been writing shit. I'm sick. Being blocked is a sickness, and I am terminally ill.
I get out of my chair and walk down the stairs from the loft. When I left her, she got the house in Riverdale and I got the cabin on Tashmore Lake. I had always liked the cabin, it's just a summer home; we can't live here Mort. She had always told me, but I am proving her wrong, I have lived here for six months, and nothing has happened to me, with the exception of John Shooter. Some lunatic from Mississippi that thinks that I "stole" his story, that Secret Window is actually his Sowing Season. I open up the fridge, and pull out a can of mountain dew, one of the few things actually in my fridge. I should go to Bowie's and get more groceries, but I don't feel like it. I need to get something decent written before I leave the cabin. Keep dreaming, that's never going to happen. Maybe the caffeine will give me some idea, some spark that I can take and turn into a story. Maybe…
Back upstairs I sat in that wooden chair, it reminded me of how wooden my work was getting. If there was any, it was stiff, emotionless, bottom line: it was shit. Was, it is shit. It will always be shit. Secret Window was a one-time thing, one-shot. Your one and only bestseller, and that's all you're getting. I stared at the blank screen hoping that some words, some decent words, would form into a story, no effort from me. It's not going to happen. It will never happen. I stared at the blank screen for hours, I felt my eyelids getting heavy, and as if it was a dream I had an idea. I took another sip of the soda to keep me awake and started typing.
This is the story of a man…
