Tabula Rasa

Greetings All!

I'm not-so-surreptitiously infiltrating this side of the blogosphere after much clever coercing from your fearless poetic leader – The Amplified Bard. Well, it wasn't quite so dramatic – but hey – he gave me free reign to write whatever tickled my fancy…and I just really wanted to use the word coerce in a sentence.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm not a poet. I'm a writer of sorts, but lately I've found that my inspiration to write pretty much anything, whether it's a press release for work or an entry on my own damn blog, has been taken captive by the bastards that are my writer's block and it's showing no signs of a struggle. It – meaning my "inspiration" – has gone into hiding and I fear she's never coming back to the forefront of my consciousness.

One of the things I'd always wanted to do was write about music. I've an unhealthy obsession with most things musical and had yearned to play some part in the grand scheme of the music world. I just never had the ovaries to do anything about it.

After an unsuccessful stint at trying to make a life for myself in Austin, I begrudgingly moved back to Houston to take a non-writing related job I thought I'd love. It didn't work out. That job kicked my ass every single day until it broke my spirit. I figured – at that point – I had nothing to lose, so I sent the email I'd wanted to send for years and hoped that taking this leap of faith into writing was the right thing to do. I was assigned to write my first music review and have been going strong for a couple of years now… That is, until my unfortunate rendezvous with blank pages.

I don't know why writer's block exists. I'm sure a simple Google search would unlock this mystery, but I fear that knowing why it's there won't make it go away. I'll just be armed by the knowledge of its existence without any ammunition for recourse. Perhaps what I should be focusing on is not the fact that I can't, in this particular state of mind, muster up the energy to find another non-existent synonym for the word music, but the fact that I have a genuine fire in my belly to get back to a place where the words flow as freely as piss from a drunk frat boy during Mardi Gras.

My sincerest thanks go out to T.A.B for making me write this entry even when I kicked and screamed in unrelenting defiance. His writing ethic is something I hope to emulate some day. You know, once the internal self-loathing disappears, and then maybe I can call myself a real writer.

Brigitte B. Zabak is a policy nerd by day and a freelance writing nerd by night. She writes for a number of publications including Amplifier Magazine, Free Press Houston and Houston Press and also acts as Editor-In-Chief of Hater Magazine. She has a Masters degree in Political Social Work and has an unhealthy obsession with indie music and candy of the gummy variety.