Maui, Meet Writer's Block. Writer's Block, Meet Maui.

This is going to be a funny post. Or rather, I intend for it to be funny. You might not find it funny. Anyway, I'll shut up and just write it. But I'm warning you all now, because so far my posts have been all writerly and all serious and stuff. It's been me at the laptop with my hand against my forehead full of the writer woe that plagues a bunch of us. Specifically writers. I've been woe-ing it up, drinking too many Sprites and whiskeys (yes, I pluralized whiskey) plagued by writer's block. Writer's block is lame. If you haven't had it, don't get it. Because that shit is contagious. So everyone stay the hell away from me. Thanks.

So I came to Maui. No, wait, that's not right. I didn't actually high-tail it to Maui because I had writer's block. I ran away from you all so you wouldn't get my disease. They used to have a leper colony just off the coast of Maui. It was fitting. You're welcome.

No, I came to Maui because I wanted to make fun of tourists. I like doing that sometimes. Makes me feel good about my days in two-dollar-a-night rooms in Thailand with their cold showers that consist of a kitchen sprayer you can use either sitting on the toilet OR standing over the toilet. All the Maui tourists make me feel hard. I watch them with their fancy shell leis and their wads of brochures and I think, I'm badass. I'm so hard. But if I'm so hard, then why do I have writer's block? Writer's block shouldn't affect someone that can both shower and shit at the SAME TIME. It doesn't seem right.

But it's affecting me all the same. So tourists are good fodder for material, right? You can watch them get on the tour bus and off the tour bus and pretend they are complaining about their feet hurting or about the poi not being purple enough at the last luau. I mean, that's gold for a writer. Pure gold! Oh, those inspiring tourists with their orthopedics and matching Hawaiian print clothes (they sell them for the whole family at Hilo Hattie. I kid you not. You and your spouse and your kids can match on purpose and be pretty targets for some dude with a mullet who is high on ice to mug you all and kick your children after you leave Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co. in Lahaina). Pure plot gold!

No. The answer is no. Tourists can't cure writer's block, no matter how you dislike them. And the worst ones, the ones that make me want to write "taro is the Hawaiian's potato" over and over again until my fingers split rather than look at them are the Honeymooners.

"Awwww," you might say. "How romantic." Stop it. Stop it right now or leave my blog. No cooing over the honeymooners. The ladies all have fake plumeria blossoms in their hair and the men wear Tevas with socks. They don't deserve your lauding. So stop.

Besides, I don't want to use them for prompts because my main characters in my latest novel are having a rough time of things. Two things are plaguing them. First, they are married. Second, one of them was kidnapped and shot up with heroin and the other is talking to people that aren't there. They are are as far from being on a honeymoon as I am from Idaho. Jesus, that was a shit comparison.

So watching couples wait with hands clasped for a woman at The Pearl Factory to pry a pearl out of an oyster that is only there because an irritating bit of sand was stuck in the poor mollusk and left there for years so that some newlyweds from Minnesota could have a keepsake doesn't really play into my tale of a dystopian future where my characters are unraveling and loosing it all. Because it's not an apocalyptic future for clams and other two-shelled sea creatures. Then it would be pure gold!

But it's enough to annoy the shit out of me.

And hey. I'm writing.

And as a writer, I lie. A lot. I didn't come to Maui to make fun of the tourists. I came because I could. And sometimes that's all it takes. Writers need to get out there and live so they have things to write about. Things like Maui's dramatic waterfalls on the road to Hana, or the way the amorous Humpback whales propel their bulk out of the ocean because they understand the value of play more than most humans. But those would be pretty things to write about. And I'm in the mood to bitch.

Besides, I'm blocked or something. Better go get some more writing fodder. Better find me a sunset or a lilikoi or a place to watch the surfers. I do this for all of us, for all of our states of health. Once again, you're welcome.