By LAURA GRIMES

The worst thing about Writer Brain is that it’s silent but deadly.

It wildly carries on in my head without anyone knowing it and then embarrassingly erupts at odd moments when I least expect it. The real problem? It’s not always quiet.

“I’m sorry,” I’ll murmur. But it’s too late. It’s out. And everyone heard it.

This happened to me at a very civilized dinner party of eight. This wasn’t during the unruly cocktail time when I could cough and hide in the folds of a curtain and hope the errant noise was covered by polite chatter and crunchy hors d’oeuvres. This happened while everyone was sitting thigh to elbow around the table and pleasantly eating salad and halibut.

I had been working for weeks on a gangly and lengthy poem that stretched well beyond the reaches of my imagination. It had started in a flash of brilliant clarity that was so pinpoint-exact that of course I could never find it again. Trying to describe it led me on an epic search from which I might never return. I wrote verse after sprawling verse.

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