When Writers Melancholy Approaches, Return To Your Base
When I was growing up, in the 80s, in a tiny coal-mining town in a hemisphere far away, there was a kid’s movie that divided all pg-rated film-watching households. It was all down to a single scene.
It was a time of VHS players, bright colours and video stores full of pinball machines that were open seven days a week.
The movie, a staple in my house but banned in others was The NeverEnding Story, and the offending scene was the horse scene. Remember it? The hero Atreyu loses his last friend in the world, his horse Artax to the swamps of sadness.
Atreyu pleads with his horse not to give in to the feeling of desolation. His coaxing and cajoling descend into panic as Artax sinks into the mud and disappears. I’m tensing up now at the memory of watching it.
Many, many, many year’s later this scene returns when I’m feeling the inevitable melancholy about my work. Atreyu’s blood piercing scream echoes out of my memory bank, forcing me to stop and take note.
I say inevitable because as much as we can build structures and habits around our writing, we can’t dispense with the level of uncertainty that any creative endeavour thrives on and in those spaces where ambiguity resides melancholy is lurking behind, trying to stop you from getting in.
