Darrell Vickers – Have Mercy Part 2 – There Is No Easy Way from the Earth to the Stars

Back to the Future:

As Part Two of the Have Mercy saga commences, Larry Hagman was still tethered to our plucky little pilot. The outline had been okayed and fluffy-fluffy joy-joy was falling down upon the land like the screaming Wallendas, but now we had to actually write this sucker. All things being considered, pounding out 40-odd pages of funny shouldn’t really have been that much of a biggie. Andrew and I had written other pilots. Egad, we’d cranked out about a dozen of them in the previous year but there was something disquietingly different about this pile of paper and ink. Perhaps we were just tired from a non-stop year of wearing out typewriter ribbons. Perhaps it was little Davey mouth-breathing down our necks with his inane suggestions and dicta. For some reason, the all-important first major scene was not rolling out like Gene Simmons’ tongue at a Kiss concert.

Darrell Vickers – Have Mercy Part 1 – I Cheat the Hagman

Andrew Nicholls and I hardly had a moment to paint an old lady during the hustley-bustley year of 1991. We were as hot as Meg Ryan before she surgically turned her lips into sea-plane pontoons.

Bob – Writer’s Block, and The Story of Malibu Bobby

Dear Diary …

The current case of Writer’s Block continues well into its 2nd month. It is a horrible feeling, not being able to put words into sentences that tell a coherent story, staring at a blank monitor screen for hours on end, wondering if I will ever be able to write again.

It happens to writers on occasion. It is visual laryngitis , intellectual paralysis, which has no known cure. Like the common cold, all you can do is wait it out, taking steps suggested by friends that may have worked for them, but do not work for me. The words cannot be forced, bribed, or cajoled into forming sentences that eloquently, humourously, or intelligently convey what is on your mind.

It is like being trapped at the bottom of a well, unable to cry out for help.

…and rather than leave the page blank, I have, this week, decided to reprint a column from 2011, when the juice was flowing and I could write three of these a week. At least there are some new links and pictures for your dining and dancing pleasure.

There are still more stories to tell, laughs to share, and adventures and opinions to commit to paper …and as soon as I can …I will.

In the meantime ….