I have been feeling extremely worthless these last few weeks, partly due to the fact that I am on a ship in the middle of the ocean (with only hairy seafarers to talk to) but more so because I can't conjure up a worthwhile topic to write about. I am an Engineer by Trade, a writer at heart and for the love of seeing paper filled with my flowing script, yet at this precise moment in time I am only capable of smashing a rusty nut with a hammer and chisel, those words are not coming out to play!

For the last few days I have finished work at the usual five 0' clock', proceeded through shower and dinner to my cabin and my computer, my time for thought removal. My release time! All day long whilst I have been swinging spanners and polishing brass I have had surges of brilliant images and provocative ideas that then seemed suitable for expansion during the coming evening session, but like now I sit at my turned on computer, an empty evening ahead with willing hands but a blocked drain on my shoulders.

Today, after three weeks of moving forwards like a car with an empty fuel tank, all that I can and have put down on paper is what you are reading now. I have scratched, shaken and rattled my head but nothing worthwhile has fallen out. I have started articles on Singapore, on Tuvalu, on Cooks and food at sea, about home life, life, sea life and just life and every single one has fallen down that long slippery slope to the delete button. Every little inspirational thought that has wormed its way out of the woodwork has ended up where it began - blank, empty and useless.

This morning as I bashed my thumb with a hammer (accidentally of course) I could see a suitable article forming about accidents at sea and how most of them are caused by humans (like me). But when in time I came to be sitting at my screen with a cup of coffee to hand that numb pain in my thumb had disappeared and with it any inspiration that I may have had. Later on my wife called me saying that she had been offered a job in America! After suggesting to her that accepting such a job might require further thought I suddenly had big urges to write about long distance relationships but yet again when faced with a blank sheet of paper I found that the subject would be too boring to even think about.

Back home I find myself more amenable to conjuring up topics and sometimes I am able to get them down onto paper before falling asleep, with the end of the pen stuck in my eye. I have even managed to retain a thought in my head that had sprung to the forefront whilst running home from town in urgent need of a toilet. I managed to keep that thought intact and alive through a tumultuous half-jog half-hop across busy streets, through crowded thoroughfares and up and down numerous stairs. The wonderful thought did not slip, in fact the picture grew as I forced myself not to be rude whilst being chatted to by the next door neighbor about her dog. With legs crossed over and blood veins standing out I arrived at my house, I struggled with the door lock despite dropping the key twice (once into the flower bed and the other into a crack between the flag stones) and eventually got it open. I tripped over the curled up corner of the hall carpet that I had always meant to do something about and moved beyond finding out (again) that the downstairs toilet was still undergoing re-plumbing, a project that I then wished I had withheld for a further week of the many that it had already been postponed for. The thought in my head survived this punishment, these setbacks and invading mind clearance attacks and it was placed resplendently on paper, to be built upon and developed as all thoughts should be. NB: I am currently awaiting a similar mad dash to the toilet so that I may finish that article soon.

I have just now counted on my computer over 100 half-started articles and half-finished short stories (very short) and another mound (which could successfully re-wallpaper the White House) that is filled with one-liner notes for possible future articles. I have with me a folder bursting to the seams with clips and articles from newspapers that once-upon-a-time I had presumed might lead to inspiration. And last but not least I have a book with the title of, 'How to Write When in Doubt'. Apart from punching, maiming or murdering the author of the book I cannot at this moment in time locate anything inspirational from my collection of aborted, discarded, ignored and basically useless resources. Nothing comes to me, even during the day when overhauling engines and sweating like a convict on mountain leveling duty, even when staring out to sea and over the horizon and even when the sun sets and shines a perfect red over the vessel and the sea beyond, even then nothing comes into the bottomless pit that resides in my head.

The situation is now so drastic that I have had to resort to lying to produce articles that are worthy of spending the time to write. Even this article, such a poor excuse for articles the world over, has been distorted and twisted so that a viable piece resulted. I now shamefacedly admit that I am not on a vessel at all. I am in fact at home where my thoughts and inspirational ideas tend to gel more often than at sea. This article was started at sea! I got as far as tapping into the computer the words "I cannot write", but after that massive splurge of matter being transferred from my brain to the keyboard, all motorization functions ground to an immediate halt. My one-liner start was then relegated to the "saved in" area of the computer and forgotten about until now.

I am on land. I am at home and whilst I am opening up my heart I must admit that I also find it nearly impossible to write articles at home and that my story about the toilet, well that has the words "must write about public lavatories" at the top of an otherwise empty page.