When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.I’m not going to say who, but someone I’m QUARANTINED with just called my writing “facile.” Am I a monster because I never get writer’s block? Because I never get tired and love nothing more than a twelve hour day at my computer, at the end of it my spine talcum, my eyes begging for mercy in the form of a little green bottle of “tears.” Yes, I cry fake tears. I’m a person for fuck’s sake. I love writing. I love free soloing. I love the sound of a tiny tapping army.
How do you get off?
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Betsy Lerner 
Well I am jealous. As I mentioned in a previous comment, I recently finished a novel I’d been working on for three years. While I was writing this story, it was all I could think about and I woke up at 4:30 every morning eager to jump back into this “world.” Even through various re-writes, I never tired of this story, never got stalled with writer’s block. But now I am done. The manuscript is with an agent (and I am very grateful that I made it to this next step). And even though I have several other ideas I think I’d be interested to get started on – I can’t. Or let’s say, I won’t. I keep circling around and making excuses, eating too much, picking fights with my husband, anxiously awaiting happy hour, etc. There is nothing like being in that flow, when all you want to do is be in your story, with your characters. And it sucks when you are outside of that, wandering around trying to figure out how to re-engage. But – I will! I will re-engage!
You mirrored this post on FB, Betsy, and I won’t repeat here what I commented there. I’m concerned that you are quarantined, and hope that you and your, shall we say, somewhat annoying inmate, will suffer no ill consequences, from virus or from the other hazards of close confinement.
As to your question, well, hell, I’m a man. Arguably a reasonably normal man. I imagine I get off same as the rest.
For the more artistic components of my being, I get off on trying to do my best work, trying not to be boring, trying to make something worth the contemplation (both of myself and others — oh, the others), and trying to toe the line between being too trying and not trying enough.
Connections. Making the link between facts, ideas, images, and words.
Maybe the other person is jealous. But, also, do you need help hiding the body?
Well, you know, candlelight, hot wax and a velvet covered swing with a long gliding arch of flight. Chocolate covered strawberries, too.
Regarding writing, well, I do get excited by a good sentence and a paragraph that floats effortlessly will create a certain sense of arousal. As good as sex? Nah, but it’s like comparing eggs to golf balls; each has its purpose but one goes better with toast.
I don’t know if this is a good thing or not, but I get excited by the words of others. If I read a book or short story that stays with me long after the final page, I feel gently dazed and pleasantly touched. The world is different and I’m grateful for that tender bliss.
Keep on writing!
I am tired and too often the words just stay in my head. Encountering each other and at times antagonizing me. However, for some unexplainable reason, I am joyful. Full of joy at having more life to live than time to live it.
Free soloing is it exactly; when stumped, I watch Alex Honnold movies. And the tiny tapping army! We are solitary woodpeckers, tapping out a message on our own dead tree.