On a not-so-nice day

Some days I don't feel nice. I tell myself I should go and write a good fight scene or kill off a few bad guys in one of my stories. Or level a couple of cities. Or maybe destroy a spaceship or two.

Isn't it grand being a writer? You can commit acts of utter destruction on a whim, without the bother and expense of accomplices and supplies, or the exhaustion of planning and effort.

And if it doesn't work? Well, you just scrap the scene and start over. Or if you like the plot and the action too much, you adjust the setting to the act instead of the act to the situation.

Yeah, writing is so much better than doing the actual thing.

Well, not always. No, really. Think about it. On a good day, there are many things I'd rather be doing than writing about...

Yeah. Umm. Well, never mind.

So back to writing on not so nice days.

Sometimes, even a scene of destruction won't do, because the words won't align themselves. The images won't appear, and the story-film won't roll.

What then?

I had a thought. Should I write reviews of books I hated?

There's something cathartic about saying what you think when you really can't be nice. Because I actually like to be nice. I enjoy making people happy. But sometimes, I just want to have fun.

Yes? No? ... ::sigh:: Nah. I don't think so.

For one thing, I can't think of a book I really hated.

Oh. Not true. I had to read something by Gorky in graduate school. I truly, deeply, absolutely hated and despised that.

But to write about it would involved a socio-politico-cultural rant you surely don't want to hear.