Once again it’s Groundhog Day; all is quiet on the good ship, AnnieWriter.

Well, not quite totally silent. That bloody crocodile in our wake is masquerading as the Mad Hatter, accentuating Captain Annie’s disquiet with a scaly cacophony of tick tock, tick tock.

If you knew Time as well as I do, you wouldn't talk about wasting it.

I know, I know!

Of course, like clockwork, this competition story had begun the usual way.

A metaphoric kiss of the Blarney Stone had filled creativity’s spinnaker and powered an eloquent wave of opening words. The good ship AnnieWriter was sailing speedily through a linguistically loquacious sea towards those acutely observed final words espied on the shimmering horizon.

But you know that saying: Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad?  

Well, there is a lesser-known writers’ version: Whom the gods destroy, they first becalm their keyboard.

Nowadays writing deadlines have become a relay race. Annie is on pace for a good finishing time, but at the first baton change, the Blarney Stone passes to … a Writer’s Block. And the good ship AnnieWriter is becalmed in shoals of verbal impotence.

It’s an age-old tale, of course, for Homer wrote about what happens next. The sirens start calling, their seductive notes redolent with mediocrity. Like: It was a dark and stormy night.

Serious drivel. Which worsens as a perfect storm of sweetly sung cliches is brewing.

Excellence is a fish out of water ... Back to the drawing board, Annie ... Timewise you’re between a rock and a hard place ... A stitch in time saves nine.

Those sirens are fair-weather friends, their song a zephyr which tacks a desperate ship into hackneyed shallows where the rocks of misspelling, poor word choices and crappy punctuation lie waiting.

You know, like: Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is a magnificent allergy.

Help me, Homer. I’m Annie and I’m an author adrift.

So, Homer does what Homers do. Lashed to the mast, tongue-tied, my fingers won’t reach the keyboard. But give thanks to the Gods, for you won’t write the sirens’ seductive drivel when you can’t write anything at all.

Down below, Homer, apparently attempting to give the good ship AnnieWriter a heave-ho, marshals the thoughts of three companionable recently appeared apparitions, Keats, Shakespeare, and Dostoevsky.

What could possibly go wrong when memories of the greats of our writing canon lend Annie a hand?

They begin to row row row the boat gently down the lexicon. At least we’re moving, albeit word by word. Tick tock, tick tock; still followed by that ever-present bloody crocodile clock.

“It’s hardly come hell or high water, Annie,” Keats mutters, “You’ll get it done, remember my Ode to a Grecian Urn.”

“What? Why?”

“If I can do an ode to a Grecian Urn, you can do an ode to a Writer’s Block.”

“It’s got to be a flash, not a damn poem.”

“The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate."

"Including crocodiles."

"Especially crocodiles. So all you need is that flash of inspiration. Boom, boom,”

Shakespeare butts in, silencing the romantic poet’s dad-joke and the not-so-romantic crocodile’s tick tock:

Double, double toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

“A flash of magic?”

“I've found it best to sacrifice a small animal on the writer’s block. The entrails will tell you what to write. All’s well that ends well.”

“But there’s just me and four famous apparitions on board …”

“And Tinkerbell.”

“I’m not, repeat not, sacrificing my cat to get a Stories Space tale done!”

“We writers live to publish. Screw pussies.”

I bet you’ve never seen two of the canons of English literature fall onto the deck, hysterically giggling like schoolgirls. I hadn’t either.

Fortunately, the Russian, being a serious writer, doesn’t get the joke. “Crime and punishment, Annie.”

“Whatever does an anguished tale of apparently justifiable murder have to do with my writer’s block?”

“Kill the deadline! The crime of dead line is justifiable when committed to remove obstacles to the higher goals of extraordinary writers, like, well, you and I.”

“Molly won’t buy it. Any rate having done the deed, there’ll be confusion, paranoia, and disgust. Theoretical justifications lose their power when confronted with the guilt and horror of an actual dead, apparently murdered, line.”

 “Who’s Molly, by the way? We’ll also add the crocodile to the to-kill list. That will shut it up.”

“Molly is a stickler for word limits and being on time. The tick tock croc is her favourite animal, for it only shuts up when a writer publishs.”

“Pity she wasn’t Tolstoy’s editor then. But if we can’t kill the rules, what can we do?”

 “Well, there’s Google. It can help deliver, not in spades of course, but a doable beige.”

Dostoevsky googles like the idiot, the gambler, one not to be humiliated and insulted. Inspired, the good ship AnnieWriter begins to move forward, powered by the dream of the ridiculous (wo)man.

Tick tock tick tock, there’s now a smile on the dial of the crocodile. “It’s almost midnight on deadline day, Annie”

“Fool; in the real world deadlines are measured by Florida alligators, not Australian crocodiles. There’s still time.”

And there still is, for it is morning in America.

Did you know there’s a thespian around these parts who is not shy about calling me Last-Minute-Annie? Screw you, mate, I’m going to be in with hours not minutes to spare. Though thank God, Molly doesn’t need an early night on competition closing day.

I hit submit …

Then I pour myself the stiffest of G&T’s.

Meow!

With an indulgent smile I serve salmon treats for Tinkerbell. But there is zilch for that bloody tick tock croc. Rather I google The Dummies Guide to making crocodile skin accessories at home.  

Hey Bill, despite your cavalier approach to pets and this comedy of errors you really are the best writer ever:

All’s well that ends well.