Isn't it horrible when we sit down to write something and the words just can't seem to form on the paper? It's as if some physical force is trying to prevent our thoughts from baring any physical form as if it were against some sort of ancient taboo. Well here's a short story (well piece of writing) I wrote regarding that kind of situation. It's pretty melancholic but that may be down to the fact I have been reading A LOT of Sylvia Plath recently!
Please read (even just a sentence or two) and tell me what you think... I am not afraid of constructive criticisms and welcome all comments both negative and positive! And if you do not wish to read on then I wish you the happiest in future reading (I don't blame you - I'm quite sure there are a lot more blogs and books out there far greater than this little hiccup). So yes; Happy Reading to all!
(Oh and just a little side note: I am awful with being all clever with blogs and stuff so I haven't been able to format the paragraphs nicely and for this I apologise deeply and hope to change this in the future...
-<>-
I sat down tentatively at my desk. A cold draft flexed its way around the room and settled a cold chill upon my back and shoulders. I knew I had to write something. What exactly that ‘something’ was still rather ambiguous to me but for weeks my head had been blocked with college work and now that my exams were finally over, I was at liberty to write at will and it gave me all the motivation I needed.
I opened a small drawer from my desk and pulled out a wad of fresh writing paper and a small slither of excitement swelled heavily inside my chest; I had been waiting to clear my head for so long and writing was the only cure. Setting down the first sheet of virgin-white paper, I pulled the cap off the fountain pen which was already in hand, poised like a soldier’s weapon, and to my sheer horror… my mind was perfectly blank.
In my haste to prepare the necessary needs for my writing practices, I had forgotten that the mental element of imagination and ideas hung like dark clouds over me, full of promise to bring rain and salvation but not-yet fully formed to provide as such. This realisation crashed down upon me in a tidal wave of sinking persistence.
I unwisely decided to put pen to paper and write regardless of having no thought process to guide it. What I ended up with were a few lines of mediocre banter. What did I want out of this? Was it poetry, a short story, maybe even a novel? Was it any format or just scribbles here and there? The purpose for my craving to write had not yet found me and instead I was left with ink-stained paper and the useless notion of having nowhere to go from here; physically and mentally.
Perhaps that was my problem; I have not yet had the experience of a true writer. My life has been sheltered and planned carefully. How can someone with so little excitement in their life even begin to write something readable or entertaining? I had blinded myself with dreams of being anyone else but me and I believed those dreams to the point where I felt I knew enough to be those people.
I was terribly miss-guided and disillusioned it seems. And I was right to brake myself away from these fantasies. I am not-yet the poet I so desperately crave to be, yes I have travelled to many places (but all under holiday provisions) and my education proved little interest in me, I am certainly not of great academic success.
So what is the point in my being here? – If all I do is sulk at an old desk. This room I have latched onto like a sea urchin has become more prison than comfort. I used to enjoy its emptiness and its cold drafts which existed even in summertime. The simplicity was good for my crowded head and it was a place where only imagination could save you from wanting to furnish it accordingly. Sometimes you need the bareness of wooden floors and timeless wall paper to give you that creative energy.
It was like my own writer’s cottage in a house that was always alive with people and sounds.
Before I dared write anything more, a gentle tap echoed lazily across the room. Someone was at the door (I had locked it to avoid any distraction of wanting to leave). I got up, relieved that I was leaving the dull atmosphere of a lost afternoon behind me and unlocked
the door to see whoever was behind it.
To my disappointment, the hallway was deserted. Maybe it was my imagination - a subliminal message from my sub-conscious telling me to give up the dream because all I was doing was waiting for something that could only come true in the imagination itself.
Bitter realisation hit me like a bee sting. I had concentrated so hard on writing and being creative that I had used up all my energy doing just that. The result was exhaustion and a caffeine addiction. Perhaps my imagination was the bee – its final attempt to save me had become its very death and I was the reluctant murderer.
And so I went back into the cold, bare room and sat back at my desk, staring into endless space. For once, my mind was at peace. That is untill another 'great idea' illuminated itself unto me and I guess I just had to get it down onto paper...
