Writer's Block.

I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, right? I’ve been told it happens to the best of us. So I’m not going to panic. Really - I'm not!

And yet…

For a writer, there is nothing quite as terrifying as the blank screen. My heartbeat quickens. I feel a drop of sweat forming on my brow. I’m overcome with the need for peanut M&M’s.

Is this it? Have I run out of witty words? Have I used up all of my clever observations? Are my profound conclusions finished? No! It can’t be over…not yet! It's not like I’m out of things to say…it’s just that something keeps distracting me. For some reason, I’m unable to focus long enough to form coherent sentences. Something is preventing me from…

...Oh, sorry about the interruption, but it was my turn on Scrabulous, and then I got a friend request from someone I hadn’t heard from in ages! It only took me a second to confirm the friendship but then I felt obligated to check out her profile and you wouldn’t believe who I found on her friend list! So, of course I had to request his friendship and…oh, where was I?

Oh yes, Writer’s Block. What could it be? Why has it been so hard to formulate a post for this weekend? Why have I been unable to write anything that even remotely resembles something worthy of…

Sigh.

As you can see, I’m distracted. And as this attempt at humor suggests, I am very aware of the cause.

It’s Facebook.

Damn you, Facebook! I’ve been a member all of seven days, and already I feel the hours disappearing faster than the peanut M&M’s on my desk.

Now don’t get me wrong; I’m loving it. It’s wonderful to hear from so many people and see how they are doing and what they’ve been up to, but the amount of time I’ve already lost to the black hole that is Facebook is a little ridiculous. I’m sure it will slow down – once I’ve found most of the people I know and seen their pages and pictures – but it’s amazing how addictive the whole process can be (one of my girlfriends calls it ‘cyber-crack’).

However, I suspect that playing online scrabble with officemates and scouring former classmates’ profiles isn’t the sole reason I’m struggling to write this week. You see, I was brave enough to put a link to Adventures in Africa on my Facebook profile, and suddenly people I haven’t talked to in nearly a decade are making comments (or “writing on my wall”) about my blog. It’s exciting…and flattering…but it is also more than a little bit terrifying. I suppose, as a writer, the goal is to write for as large an audience as possible, but to imagine faceless strangers reading and enjoying my innermost thoughts is one thing; to think of my former teacher reading it …or the girls I envied in high school…or the guy I had a crush on in college…or even the writer I admire in my office…well, to consider them reading it is a completely different matter! Suddenly, I’m paralyzed. My fingers are frozen on the keyboard as I wonder what my new readers think…what entries they’ve read…if they’ll revisit the site. I scroll through old posts and wonder if anyone will look back and read some of my favorite ones (like Home Invasion and Confession). I cringe at some of my old posts...the whiney ones, mostly, and a few that were written on nights like tonight when I was too distracted to put anything decent together. I turn my attention back to the blank Word document. The white space taunts me. What should I write now? I can’t simply write about whatever happens to be on my mind now that I have a legit audience (I mean, there might be twelve of you now, and that’s totally different from two!). The pressure is on…and I need to say something good.

This definitely isn’t it. But hopefully, my teenybopper fascination with Facebook will have dissipated by next weekend, and I’ll be back to my usual neurotic-but-witty self. But until then (and since I feel like I owe you some form of entertainment this week), check out the Facebook Song on You Tube. It makes me laugh every time. (Thanks Greg!)