Learning To Write With My Mouth

Envisioning unlimited possibilities, I clutch my pen with determination, hunching intently over the blank page before me--and nothing happens. So I'm trying to learn to write with my mouth.

Writer's block. Brain gridlock. Different terms visualize the terminal breakdown between idea and written word despite heroic efforts to compel empty paper to yield fruit.

Eventually I manage to eke out a few sparse notations and type them up. Only about 50 of the 500 words I need. Not too good for a morning's labor.

Though reticent by nature, I've somehow stumbled upon the idea of busting writer's block with my mouth.

Here's the new procedure. Instead of typing up my meager notes, I now pretend I'm delivering a five-minute extemporaneous speech. Then with notes before me, disjointed though they be, I verbally ramble from thought to thought, trying to weave meaningful dialogue. A digital voice recorder tucks every word into its infallible memory.

Unlike old-fashioned tape recorders, this little device also transfers my slow-as-molasses Southern drawl into the computer. Thus technically enabled, I can replay at speeds making me sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks crooning "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth."

Once playback commences, I hunch intently over the keyboard and pound the plastic like a wild man. Very efficient. Unfortunately, that doesn't make the ideas any better.

Play... type... replay... type. The cycle repeats until the entire conversation appears on paper--which I then set aside to edit when my thought process is more lucid.

But there's more.

Whenever a fresh idea strikes fire, it's quickly whispered into the high-tech recorder instead of being scribbled onto a low-tech pad. This has permitted the capture of aspiring candidates for future columns (example: "When We Used To Watch the Saturday Night Reekers") that might should have been allowed to escape unmolested.

In younger days, I could study my Bible for hours at a stretch without getting weary. Now drowsiness quickly smothers me like a blanket tossed over the head.

Nevertheless, I'm delving into a 12-lesson series entitled "Why Doesn't God Do Something Right Now?" despite the discouraging persistence of blank pages and scribbled musings. But "writing with my mouth" is helping flush meaningful ideas out of hiding and run them to the ground.

And since I'm using my mouth more, I've blended some of my favorite Biblical admonitions to help keep it on track:

"Where words increase, transgression is unavoidable. So let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, letting the same mouth issue both blessing and cursing. For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart, and what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. Therefore, I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth."

The spoken word, an arrow shot,
Will find a mark if aimed or not.

Copyright 2004 James McAlister

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