Writer's block is when the words won't come.
I've got writer's stau. Say it with me. "Schtow" - rhymes with "cow".
"Stau" is a German word meaning, effectively, traffic jam. It's a derivative of "staugefahr" which means "delays likely" or "risk of congestion". It's one of my favorite German words. Concise. To the point. Sounds like it is, if traffic jams had a sound.
Imagine vehicles traveling unlimited speeds on the autobahn, and having to come to a slow down because of road construction, accident, etc. We're talking 100 mph is normal cruising speed (trust me, I know . . . what other speed would you take the A3 to Frankfurt at?). Now imagine the after affects of that - a stau in Germany can be crippling and can last for kilometers.
I feel like that with writing. All the words are there, ready, they just have to get through the congestion. I have so many thoughts in my head right now that are total blog-fodder (as opposed to blog-father - Iggy). My "snow" day where the plane took down an entire city power grid for a full day. The moron who took out his aggression on the IRS by crashing his plane (cry me a river) into a building in Austin (yeah, that and the people you injured really showed those guys and are going to drive meaningful change). My dependence upon technology. My husband's search for a job. The excitement of the Olympics (and the hotness of Shaun White and his lovely ginger locks). Morons at work. Nice people at work. Shoes.
But it's like they're all racing down the highway at 100 mph and there is a tight curve up ahead with construction cones, a fender bender, and a dead deer or two. And until one of these "vehicles" makes it way around all the obstacles and out onto the open freeway, I'm looking at a blank screen or tidbits of half-finished blog posts scattered about "My Documents."
I want to be witty. Pithy. Sarcastic. Romantic.
But all I got is a thousand words struggling to get out. Total verbal stau.
Oh, and a bed, calling me, saying "put your head here, sweet thing . . . no staus in dreamland."
Respectfully submitted,
The Wife
4 comments:
I Like the German term "Staub die dauman," the best.
I think I spelled that correctly. My German is roughly 16 years out of practice.
Kugelschreiber is another word that is fun to say.
Staubsauger another. Pretty sure I didn't spell that one right.
Be like me and do not really write. You can not block nothing!! Break even baby!
Can't wait for the "Stau" to cease. Sounds like we've got some mighty fine reading ahead of us!
:)
German words are fun!
You just throw a bunch of roots together to make more complex nouns.
One day we conjectured that if vergnugen is a pleasurable experience (fahrvergnugen = pleasurable driving experience because fahren means to drive) and if saugen means to suck, then wouldn't a blowjob be a saugvergnugen (a pleasurable sucking experience)?
It's Friday.
My brain is lost.
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