the opposite of inspiration

It's summer and I write every day. Sometimes I feel like writing, I feel inspired, and yet when I sit down to write it's like pushing rocks up a hill, and every word is wrong. Other times I feel completely empty, but the words say exactly what I want them to say. So much for the value of inspiration.

The Day I Fell in Love and Lost All Hope of Earning a Decent Wage

I hardly knew Chuck when he came to the bar where I worked years ago and gave me a copy of Ivan Illich's book, Deschooling Society. I read it and dropped out of college. Illich, in case you don't know, argues that education isn't really about learning but about maintaining class structure. More broadly, he argues against experts mediating and defining our experience.
Chuck says that if he had his way no employer would be able to discriminate based on educational background.

autobiographical Fellini

When my first book came out I said that it had nothing to do with me. The character was not me. The situation was not mine. The story was in no way autobiographical. Everyone asks that. How much of it is you? Fellini died yesterday, and NPR did a story about him. They said that Fellini’s films were always about him, about his dreams, his childhood, his fears, lovers, obsessions. I am easily influenced. I thought, of course what we write or imagine is always about ourselves. How can it not be? I guess what I should have said, instead, was so what?