the most bizarre kind of writer's block...

there's this book called "If you can talk, you can write"

BUY IT!

it's written by Joel Saltzman...
very easy reading...should take you like an hour.

very, very helpful tips and excercises.
 
This is something I had to write for English. It was supposed to be modled after zen parabols but it turned into more of a short story.

In a far off land, the true time and place long forgotten, a man lived with his 3 sons in a small hut on a cliff overlooking a narrow river. The man and his sons lived far from any other people. In fact the children (for they were indeed still children, the 2 eldest both just over 10 and the youngest only 7) had no memories of any adults other than their father. As long as the children could remember they had always lived off the seemingly inexhaustible amount of fish in the river bellow the hut and the plentiful wild birds that lived in the surrounding forest. But all was not well, for the river's water, once pure and teaming with life, now lay stagnant and gray and the wild birds who themselves lived off the fish in the river had for the most part departed in search of food elsewhere. And so food had become scarce for the first time in the children's memory. "The gods are cruel beasts"; the father cursed as he shook his fist at, what seemed to his children, an empty sky.
Still, each day the father sent his children out in search of food. The eldest two were sent to the river, dragging fishing rods of branches, thread, and bent nails behind them. The youngest was sent to the woods in search of foul. The young child was not frightened of traveling into the woods alone for he was not truly alone at all. The families hunting dog accompanied him. They boy was very found of the old dog and felt safe with him as a companion.
Days past and still very little food was to be found. One day the father awoke the children before the sun had yet risen. There was a fire in his eyes that frightened the children. "This has gone on too long!" he cried, "Something must be done! The gods are angry and I was a fool to think I could put this off for so long!" he said, "They must be appeased!" The father's eyes franticly scanned the barren hut finally coming to rest on the old hunting dog who lay sleeping in the corner. The dog awoke suddenly as if it had felt the stone gaze of the father upon him. Without another word the father walked over to the dog, picked him up by the nape of his neck, and walked out the door. The children had never seen their father act in such a way and quickly followed him out the door and into the cool dawn.
The father had walked to the edge of the cliff overlooking the river. The whole way the youngest son, expecting the worst, had pled with his father to put down the dog. The father did not answer him until he reached the edge. He then turned towards his children. "This is not the first time the gods have punished this family and it will not be the last. It's been almost seven years and it can't be put off any longer." The father once again turned his back to the young boys to look over the edge of the cliff. Still the youngest child pleaded with him. "Father, why do we not simply do as the birds have done and leave this accursed place and find a new place to live where there is still food?" "No!" the father cried angrily without turning around, "We have always lived here and we always will!" "But how will this help?" the child protested. "It is what my father had instructed me to do in dire times as his father instructed him and as I now instruct you." The father said in a low voice. "It is right, how could it not be?" And with a great cry he hurled the helpless dog over the edge and into the river countless feet below.
Many days had passed since that morning and neither the fish nor the birds had returned and the family was no better off than they had been. Over the past few days the father had fallen ill, weak from malnutrition. The youngest child had done nothing but ponder his father's actions on that morning forever etched upon his memory. That night he approached his father. "Father, how could you have faith in such things? Is no price to great to protect your pride?" he asked. "My pride?" the father said startled "I merely do what I know and what I know is what I have been taught. How could I have lived my whole life under false beliefs? Why should I not believe what I have been taught?" "What of making ones own choices?" the child demanded growing impatient "How much would you sacrifice for these adopted beliefs?" There was a long silence before the father replied. "Everything. For even your mother, the only one for whom I truly cared, fell before our beliefs seven years ago." The young child could not believe what he had just heard. Disgusted he ran out of the hut and into the night. The two elder sons had not been asleep had heard the entire conversation. They quietly arose and followed their brother out of the hut. They found him weeping, sitting at the edge of the cliff overlooking the river. The two older boys sat down on either side of him. "You realize that without food our father will soon die do you not?" The older boys said almost in unison. "The youngest nodded sobbing, "Yes, I know. But how could he? How could he still clutch his old beliefs when them have dealt him so much pain? Why not learn from these mistakes rather than be doomed to forever repeat them?" "We do what we know" the older brothers replied in a haunting chorus. "And what we know is what we have been taught." These were the last words the youngest song ever heard as he was pushed off the edge of the cliff felling two pairs of hands at his back. He felt no fear but instead an intensely burning anger as hurtled towards the river countless feet below.
 
No,no,it wasn't your story!Your story was awesome...if you want to see something terrible,just look at my drawing of WD.
About the thread,though...eh,I guess I just got over my writer's block and,therefore,didn't feel the need to keep this thread going*shrugs*
 
No,I'm too busy picking apart my own artwork to critisize anyone else's.My belief is that I shouldn't critisize the work of other ppl which I can't do mysefl,such as art or poetry,because I know next to nothing about the process for creating either or how it's supposed to sound or look.Though I guess that's more for poetry,because,if you're an artist or not,you can see what's wrong w/a drawing.But I just can't draw as well as most others can,so I keep my mouth shut.
 
Chicken shit...godamnit,that's fucking...wrong.
Of course,lots of people consider this picture of a partially clothed dying,bleeding man nailed to a cross in execution a work of art,so...
I think I'll do a version of that picture using chicken shit:lol: