Tennitus

I've fallen prey to the disease that writers fear more than Writer's Block... Terminal Tennitus.

For those of you who are lucky enough to have never contracted this particular disease, I will give you the basic prognosis: Terminal Tennitus is a disease which strikes when a writer hits the last ten pages of his/her script and is unable to bring the bastard across the finish line. I know this is a real disease, because I've spoken with other writers who have contracted it. Apparently, it's a lot like Herpes. Once you've had it, you have it for life and the outbreaks can either get worse with time, or can abate completely.

Symptoms include: cramping of the fingers, the intestine and/or the genitals. Profuse sweating from the brow. Bloodshot eyes. Too much or too little mucous. Diarrhea. Vomiting. Sleeplessness. Milky, yellow discharge from the anus and/or the ears. Clenched/puckered sphincter. Painful, itching pustules in the armpit region. Fever. Euphoria. Dementia. Claustrophobia.

I have all of the above. And man, have I got it bad. I'm like the Brundlefly at this point. It's nasty.

The throbbing of my twin Generac 7000 generators is like the Devil (my former agent) tap-dancing on my skull. I'm starting to think that what I'll do is cut and paste the first ten pages of the script at the end (because bookending scripts seems to be the thing to do now), or maybe structure the whole damn thing backwards like Memento or Irreversible.

Your truly from the bowels of despair,

JRH