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I must admit to my readers that I am in the throes of one of the longest and worst writer’s blocks in recent memory. But you wouldn’t have known that from my title. For that you can thank my agent, who informs me of a very technical but no less binding legal problem – namely, that I cannot release two installments of an officially-established series within the same calendar month.* To strip the legalese from this and give it to you in plain English, this means that since I have already written “Writer’s Block III” in April, I cannot (technically speaking, but in very real terms nonetheless) release “Writer’s Block IV” until the calendar rolls over into May. To this you no doubt are asking why I didn’t just roll over, go back to sleep, and wait a few days before releasing this under its proper title. To which I will admit that you have an excellent point. In fact, the point is so good that I shall concede it and continue to write anyhow – just because I am the kind of man who likes to defy The System every now and then.
That does not mean that I am necessarily gifted in my defiance. Since this article is shorn of the customary title which blurts out to the world that I have nothing whatever to write about, you may be expecting the normal fare. I cannot promise that, and I would even caution that it isn’t coming. However, if this article turns out to be even worse than you expected, then we both can claim to at least have broken even on the deal – and I may have come out a little bit ahead of you.
Since you have been asking so many questions of late, you may also ask why this bout with writer’s block has been so severe and prolonged. I can only guess that I was initially coming out of it but relapsed only recently when the swine flu hit. Such is not to say that the swine flu attacks the faculties of writers along with their immune systems. Rather, I can explain it very simply by saying that it is due mainly to the mask I have been wearing for half a week now in the midst of my self-quarantine. This mask, you see, has not allowed my brain to breath as well as it normally does, and thus my ideas get no ventilation.** And ideas, like any good campfire, need air.***
To show you just how insidious writer’s block can be, I will show it to you in action. You see, I would like to get one good last paragraph written (just one, mind you – if I had asked for two last paragraphs, they could not both have been the last, unless you count all four paragraphs of this piece as the last paragraphs, which makes about as much sense as anything else I have written today), but I cannot. I have no subject matter to fashion into either a sentence or a full-fledged paragraph. Thus you and I are both stuck with a skeleton of a paragraph – a pattern, if you would – with no content. In some lines of work such skeletons are called templates. My agent says that technically I am not allowed to publish only templates – they must be filled with content. But it is the job of agents to get their drawers in a knot over technicalities – and I, for one, am in no mood to help untwist them.****

*Author’s Note: You may be wondering whether my “Fiction Fridays” series, which is released more than once monthly, does not fit into this category. It does not. My agent tells me that fiction is an entirely different category governed by entirely different sets and subsets of rules. My agent also tells me that since I did not release an installment of “Fiction Fridays” last Friday (when I should have), I have foregone the right to release another one this calendar month. But it being nearly May, I chose to ignore my agent on that and other matters.

**Author’s Note: This should in no way be taken to imply that the author breathes primarily through his mouth. His nose is his usual respiratory implement, as it is for most people, except when it is blocked by nose-hair and other matter. However, since the author has just today both picked and plucked his nose, his implement is not impeded.

***Author’s Note: The reader may be questioning the validity of the analogy between ideas and a good campfire. The reader is quite justified in doing this. But, again, I can explain. For when a writer has writer’s block, his analogies cannot be expected to make any sense whatsoever – as is also the case, unfortunately, with his articles.

****Author’s Note: It is a very poignant case in point that I have gone against my agent’s advice even in this. You see, my agent tells me that it simply won’t do to have exactly as many “author’s notes” as there are paragraphs in the main body, even if one of those paragraphs is a template with no content. But you see, I enjoy watching my agent squirm.