Overcoming Writer's Block

Faithful readers of The Daily Beat know that I have been on a once-a-week posting schedule for over a year. That's not a particularly grueling schedule as blogging goes, yet here I am struggling to find something to say that is relevant and worthwhile. And that hasn't been said before. Writer's block, I guess -- something that finds us all sooner or later, even Jack Kerouac (speaking of which, this is a cool product).

When stymied in the past, my go-to has sometimes been an update on my top ten posts with the most pageviews of all time. That list hasn't changed a lot since my last report, so I discarded that idea.

I could report on Kerouac in the news, but many of you already know what I know because you're members of the excellent Facebook Kerouac group where tidbits like the closing of Ricardo's in Lowell (formerly Nicky's, where Jack hung out) are reported quickly.

Another idea would be some original writing, but I'm not feeling too original of late.

How about an opinion piece on current affairs? No, too fraught with ugliness and despair.

A piece on my latest reading endeavor (Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace)? Not far enough along to have perspective (yet).

An analysis of one of Jack's works? It's been done ad infinitum.

A new interview? Hmmm.... One is in the works but there's nothing "in the can."

Six degrees of Jack Kerouac (connecting Jack to another person, place, thing, or event in as few steps as possible)? I'm bereft of ideas.

Rehash or link to an old post? That's too easy.

What about posting something written by Jack? Ahh, there's the ticket.

Here's the process. I will turn to page 23 of the 23rd book in order on my Kerouac bookshelf (23 being a most mystical number with a Burroughs connection - see my December 18, 2008 post) and find a passage to quote. Your job? To identify the source. Here we go....

FOLLOWING LEE KONITZ the famous alto jazzman down the street and don't even know what for -- saw him first in that bar on the northeast corner of 49th and Sixth Avenue which is in a real old building that nobody ever notices because it forms the pebble at the hem of the show of the immense tall man which is the RCA building -- I noticed it only the other day while standing in front of Howard Johnson's eating a cone, or rather it was too crowded for me to get a cone and I was just standing there and I was thinking "New York is so immense that it would make no difference to anybody's ass if this building exists and is old" -- Lee, who wouldn't talk to me even if he knew me, was in the bar (from which I've made many phonecalls) waiting with big eyes for his friend to show up and so I waited on corner to think and soon I saw Lee coming out with his friend who'd arrived and it was Arnold Fishkin the Tristano bassplayer -- . . . .

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Richard!