On Writing and its Hiatus

I am frustrated by my inability to write. I am frustrated that the words do not come out the way I envisioned and instead I have these short bursts, these ideas — this ambient world-building in my head. They live for a few minutes and I am enthralled as in a dream and I think — I can paint this story! Yes, these are the words that fit and this would be the tone — oh imagine — take a screenshot, a photograph of my mind — I want to describe it all!

And I return to keyboard and mouse only to find words that are half-finished, sentences strewn aside, my story has long since vanished and I am left with the dregs of tea.

I wish I could write all the time. Whenever, wherever. I wish I could write as I lived - that I didn’t have to carry a digital napkin to scribble ideas and notes. The world teasing a story out of me — a character, an object with such powerful mystery that I am compelled to weave its history and then abandoning me when I turn to the white gleam of computer light.

I sit here, blank, and pick words from a forest — was it this one? Or this one? But no, I have forgotten even how to write. One word after the other sits awkwardly like a school photograph — best friends separated, ordered by height, plaits extra tight. Your head throbs as you watch — no one is happy but the picture is theoretically complete.

And then I admonish myself — why am I writing to you? You don’t exist. I write for me — to me. What do I tell myself? And my pen interjects, correcting a spelling or grammar — unable to enjoy the lackluster words. It is a sculpture! I yell — but this is what happens if you write with the pen that you edit with.

And then I close the page, reopen it, open another and vent my frustration and it doesn’t help but at least now the words are honest, they are unchoreographed, it is a mad dance but it is very much alive and very much here and very much all mine and then I think, isn’t that what truly matters? Isn’t that the compass I need to use to guide my stories? Is it alive, is it here, and is it mine? And then perhaps the letters about cafe rendezvous, peeing in bed, unforgiving sisters, and so much more will come to me in a flourish and I don’t have to worry about getting them right or getting them square. The only thing that will matter is that it will all be told the way I see it. By me, to no one else.