If I ignore it, it only gets more insistent. "Something! Do it! Do it NOW!" I'm never really sure what the Something is, but sitting in front of a keyboard and babbling for a while somehow helps.

(I suppose it might actually be an urge to do something entirely different. If I only knew what my mind was trying to tell me, I could have maybe discovered a cure for cancer or learned to levitate. But I've always assumed "Do Something" must mean "write something" so that's always what I try to do.)

Writing cures the symptoms, not the disease. When these fits come upon me, I write. Then, for a little while, it's all ok.

Part of the problem is that the Urge rarely comes with a satisfactory idea. I end up shooting off a diary entry about work, or laundry, or my cats. It's easy. I could do it a hundred times without thinking. The trouble is, it's the mental equivalent of being hungry and eating a pound of cotton candy. Empty brain calories. No real substance or nourishment.

Granted, the Urge is appeased for a little while. But then it comes back, and it's pissed off. "SOMETHING!! I told you to do something, and you did THIS?? Why won't you just do the something, already? It's such a simple little something, you could have done it eight times already by now..."

OK, I'm sorry, let me try again. Here is another diary entry for you.

"A diary entry, eh? Hmm... *munch munch munch* AAAARRGH I said I wanted Something, and you insult us both by giving me this?"

Repeat, every day, forever. I'd like to say that I know eventually I'll get an idea of real substance, and then the Urge really will be satisfied for a few months. Right now, though, that just doesn't seem possible. I've got an angry writer's block growling in my head, and it won't even tell me what it wants.

It's a scaly little purplish-greenish-black thing, with stumpy legs and fangs twice as long as its face. It slobbers in my ear, and I can't think of anything except that it's there and it won't go away. If it would just leave me alone and let me think, maybe then I could understand what it's trying to tell me.

Maybe it IS the idea. I could write a story about how I've got this warty bruise-colored idea sitting on my shoulder, drooling down my neck, and I can't do a thing about it. The story begins, "There is no denying the Urge to Write...."

Nah. Too obvious.

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