Will I ever get the chance to be a has-been?

Writing is frustrating. I have been writing a short story for JMag for the past few weeks, working on it the way you're supposed to take the LSATs - moving along quickly without sacrificing quality - and then all of a sudden, about a week ago, I just hit a block. Just like that - in one day, I don't know how to continue, I fail to make any more progress on this story. I even know what's supposed to happen, how it's supposed to end ("it" being simply the storyline - not the super-engaging, heart-pumping action that is not included in my short stories). But words simply stop coming out. It's like all of my creative mojo has left me - I'm a surgeon without fingers, a Hopkins student without a TI-89, a slidarian without silver tape. You get the idea.

But seriously.

Writing fiction doesn't come easily to me. I read the Rabbit series, Irving's novels, the current collection of Best American Short Stories, and every word is just the right word. Everything flows in the way only Updike, Irving could make it - whatever they choose to put down could only be the right choice. When you read a sentence, "In just one day Janice has acquired a widow's briskness, the speed afoot of a woman with no man to set the pace for her," you know it is Updike - there is no question that each of those words have fallen into the right slot, seemingly without effort. The sentence rolls off your tongue and you move on to the next one - you don't see his revisions, the misplaced adjective, the deleted comma he thinks twice about. But when I write, that is all that's in front of me, and every minute is a struggle to ponder that perfect next word that will make this piece mine, fluid yet laden...

Anyway, yadda yadda...in conclusion I think this story is getting submitted for next semester's issue of JMag, which doesn't matter either way because so few of my friends care enough read this stuff anyway. *sigh*

Here's something that would probably be appreciated more than my personal ramblings...a Britney Spears quote to wipe your brain clean of all that literary nonsense (what am I thinking??):

I have to tell the maid to buy diapers and get the pool boy to walk the dog? Can't I just make out with Kevin all the time? Being married sucks.