the critic that hits you where you live

Warren Ellis sez:

It’s the blank page thing. Aaron Sorkin talked about it a bit, at the top of one of the WEST WING scriptbooks. The blank page is the only critic that can hit you where you live. In one of the episodes, in fact, a journalist asks Sam why writing a major speech is hard, and Sam says, because it’s a blank piece of paper. It knows all your secrets. In Sorkin’s words, it sits there and hisses, “I know how you’ve been scamming all those people all these years, GIFTLESS, you wanna dance with me?”

And we really don’t. We stare into space for hours, running themes and structures and settings through our heads.

Comforting to hear that this kind of thing happens even to someone as prolific and accomplished as Warren. I didn't write a single usable word yesterday; I did some planning for an essay on Wonder Woman I'm writing for BenBella Books, and wrestled with a concept for an 8-issue horror/drama comic series I'd like to do. Seems like it takes about four hours thinking/dreaming for every hour of actual, useful work.