I'm back!

Hey, I bet even Shakespeare suffered from writer's block.

Hi-dee-ho everybody!

Please tell me you didn't think I dropped dead back in January. I would feel so bad if you've spent the past six months lighting candles for my immortal soul.

I’m happy to report that Lupus didn't kill me, nor did the dodgy heart. Nope. I just suffered from the worst case of writer's block I have ever had.

If I had a dollar for every time I opened Word and did nothing but stare at the blank page, I would be so rich, Elizabeth Warren would want to raise my taxes. I was blocked up, cognitively constipated, dead from the neck up. If only they made a Viagra for this.

Back when I was writing content for monetized websites targeting Trump supporters, my biggest fear about earning a paycheck from writing clickbait rubbish that people out to make a quick buck think "right-leaning" readers want to consume was that I would burn out faster than a seventies rock star. In a way, I was relieved when, in late July last year, the clients I was writing for dropped us freelancers in favor of AI-generated text.

I was certain that being free of churning out 60 clickbait articles every week would give my writing a shot in the arm and get my creative juices working overtime.

Boy, was I wrong. Instead, once I no longer had to write about politics, I discovered that I no longer wanted to write about politics. The level of cynicism that fueled my political commentary went from "Isn't she comical and charming?" to "Jeeze, what a bitch."

I hated everybody. It got to the point that just seeing Don Junior's stupid face made me eager to punch his lights out. I'd say, "Sock him in the chin," but let's be honest here. Why do you think he wears that beard? If he were clean-shaven, Americans would notice that his face stops somewhere just below his lower lip. For crying out loud, Don. Pull out a Chinese phonebook. You're in desperate need of a chin!

The other day, Jeff Blehar quote-tweeted a video clip of Charlie Kirk, and I couldn't stop staring at his big, lightbulb-shaped head. Good heavens. I always said MAGA influencers have inflated heads, but Charlie seems to have taken me literally. His head has expanded so much that it makes his facial features look pinched and tiny. He looks like a Pixar character. It's as if someone stamped Charlie's face onto a coin and then laid it on the railroad tracks.

See what I mean? What a bitch!

I'd sit at my laptop, staring at a blank Word doc, and think to myself, "I hate all of these assholes." Why should I give them any oxygen? What's the point when they're going to suck all of the oxygen out of the room, no matter what I do?

When I was first getting sober, my sponsor always told me, "Don't push the river; let it flow." I knew by mid-February that every time I sat staring at a blank Word doc, I was trying to push the river. It was time to step back, take a sabbatical from writing, and let the river take me.

Playwright Marsha Norman said that if a writer isn't writing, she should be reading. In mid-February, I decided to take her advice.

I have read 35 books since then. There are days when the only thing I accomplish is reading a book from start to finish.

When I was younger, I hated to read. Hated it. In high school, I could've been the CliffsNotes Poster Girl. This general loathing of the written word continued in college. I read only what I had to and hoped like hell that I got tested on it immediately before it dribbled out of my head.

That changed during my junior year of college when one of my professors included among his assigned reading the novel "My Name is Asher Lev" by Chaim Potok. When I went to the bookstore at the start of the semester and discovered that I was going to have to slog through a novel, I was a tad irritated. I wasn't an English or Literature major. Why in Lucifer's reach would a professor in the Biblical Studies and Philosophy department assign a work of fiction? Midway through the semester, the professor told us to read "My Name is Asher Lev" over the weekend to be prepared to discuss it in class the following week. I spent the rest of the school week dreading the weekend. But when I finally sat down to read it, I couldn't stop. Nobody was more surprised than I when I got to the end and felt a twinge of disappointment that the story was over.

"My Name is Asher Lev" transformed me into an avid, dedicated reader. The first thing I did after finishing the book was go to the campus library to see if they had anything else by Chaim Potok. By the end of the semester, I had devoured Potok's "The Chosen," "The Promise," and "In the Beginning." Over the following summer, I discovered that he also wrote a history of the Jewish people called "Wanderings," which I found at a used bookstore not far from campus.

There is no one more fervent than a convert. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop. I would ask my friends for recommendations, which was how my friends discovered that this seemingly intelligent Biblical Studies major attending a Christian college had never in her life read "The Chronicles of Narnia." Hell, I never even heard of them.

In a fit of nostalgia, last week I started reading all of Potok's books again for the first time in decades. I took a break from that to read two books by contemporary author Kat Rosenfield. I've been following Kat on Twitter for a while now, after having read a few of her columns in the Free Press. Her columns are terrific, but her novels are outstanding. I read "No One Will Miss Her" last Tuesday and her latest book, "You Must Remember This," last Thursday. She is an exquisite writer. Her next book is due out next spring, and I am looking forward to it.

Over the weekend, I read conservative columnist Jon Gabriel's debut novel, "Sink the Rising Sun," about US submariners in the Pacific during the Second World War. I enjoyed it thoroughly, especially since I had just recently finished reading Herman Wouk's epic World War Two sagas, "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance."

Through all this reading, I kept waiting for Marsha Norman's advice to bear fruit and get me through this crippling writer's block. There were times, as the weeks went by without a single word written, that I wavered. But over the last week or so, I knew it was working. I found myself writing in my head as I was falling asleep at night. Did I remember any of it in the morning? Not really. But it was a sign that the part of my brain that powers my writing was starting to reboot.

Sunday afternoon, I was reading Potok's "In the Beginning" when I started to doze off. I put the book aside and let myself drift. And as I floated between sleeping and waking, I once again began to write in my head. This time, however, I was awake enough to do something about it. I hopped off the bed, went out to the living room, and grabbed my laptop. The next thing I knew, it was nearly ten o'clock at night, I hadn't eaten since lunch, and the only light in my house was the glow of my laptop. But I had written 33 pages.

It's a literary miracle!!

Who knew that reading is a writer's colonic? Well, Marsha Norman, that's who. So, thanks, Marsha!

I still don't know if this means that my level of cynicism is back to "isn't she comical and charming?" That may take some time, since the state of American political discourse still has me hoping for a second Great Flood. It's difficult to write political commentary when my commentary on any subject can be summed up by three words: "You all suck!" But we'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, if you haven't read Jon Gabriel's "Sink the Rising Sun," I highly recommend it. It's a terrific yarn, especially for those of you who enjoy World War Two fiction. If you're into mystery/thrillers with unexpected twists and turns, you will love Kat Rosenfield's novels "No One With Miss Her" and "You Must Remember This."

As for me, I plan to finish reading "In the Beginning" and then try a little Graham Greene.

As far as the writing goes, I will continue to let the river flow.