After some much needed R & R, I resumed work on the hateful brochure. It has so many colors.

That's why my site is black, black, black.

Real creativity has some brainwork. But mostly, it's allowing your fingers to plunk around, completely by-passing your stifling cerebral cavity, and receive instructions that come from your eyes.

Real creativity, once you're in a "weis", a zone, a state of near-brainless communication, the design manifests itself through reflexes. Eyes. Fingers. Eyes. Fingers. The act of creating anything in this state is almost as simple as breathing. It is relaxing. It is natural. It is right.

Then, as though fate is unsatisfied without some jest, your computer will undoubtedly stall. Depending on how bored fate was at the time it enacted this cruel jest, you may lose anywhere from part to all of the art.

Fate snickers. You throw your computer against the wall.

Scratch that. You bang your fists against your desk. After all, if you were to destroy your computer, fate would go from a silent snicker to a full-on, uproarious laugh. You might even hear it. Wouldn't that be creepy?

So the moral of this hypothetical story is save your work often. Because you don't want to tempt fate.

Today's spanking is a sore throat. It's one of those grubby mornings where I sit on my sofa with a blanket and my computer doing work, work, work. Since I feel ill, I've spent the morning downing Vitamin C, and polishing off most of a carton of Tropicana.

The brochure is for my company. But everytime I pull it up to work on it, my mind turns to putty. It's like writers block for artists.

I am cranky. My throat hurts. It is cold outside. I do not want to work.

I want soup. I want fire.