The Lightbulb is Sometimes Dim

I force myself into a deep calm where I can let my thoughts linger in the silence of the moment. I hear the soft purr of my calico cat that sits on my lap and sprinkles my leggings with tufts of fur. After my mind is clear I grip onto a sense of character. Her lips are a cherry red and her hair is a dirty blond with streaks of pure gold. Moreover, her eyes are a listless number of adjectives, but none do justice to her indescribable blue eyes. I feel her. I know she is there, waiting to be written down onto my wordless page. After a few more seconds of silence, I connect my pencil to the blank page...but nothing comes out. The beautiful girl is slowly slipping my mind and my frustration drowns her out completely. She is lost. 

Rage fills within me and I rip the blank page to shreds while letting out a bloodcurdling scream that pierces through the morning air. I search my mind for solutions, but my mind is as blank as the new page in front of me. 

I resort to Google, the only platform that seems to jog my creative juices, for lack of better term, and I sit for endless hours searching, striving for inspiration. Nothing. 

Later, I begin to read an article that features the question of the hour, “How to Face Writer’s Block!” and try out the first suggestion on the list. In clear bold letters and in a standard font I can see the words Go for a walk, so I do. 

When I reach the front door of my house, I open it with haste and storm out down the steps.  I live on a lovely road that is lined with cherry blossoms and adorned with tall lamp posts. My determined walk has slowed to a stroll as I take in the scenery around me. Shortly after I turn the corner of my street the smell of maple syrup bombards my senses. I can tell the Wilberty’s are having pancakes for lunch. What an odd request, I think to myself, my controlling personality getting the better of me. 

As I walk down the quiet street I come upon a river and I sit and I listen. Settings flood in on me all at once and I can’t seem to grasp just one. I can see the flowing water that the girl sits by, her evenly lotioned hand running through the cool current. I can see it. I can feel it, but the setting of my story has faded like the mist that comes off the overwhelming river. 

Agh! I scream, clutching my head and smashing my ears into my brain. My hands begin to tremble as my anger turns to sorrow, the sorrow of the lost memory. The sorrow of the lost idea, the perfect idea for my blank page at home. I give up on the rest of my walk and race back to the comfort of my house, my eyebrows furrowed and my fists clenched.  

Play, the next idea on the list, of the endless fight to end my writer’s block. Play what? I wonder. Suddenly I am aware of the destination that holds my old toys and I rise from my criss cross applesauce position with only one purpose in mind. Without another thought I am quickly heading towards my basement, my feet moving so quickly the rest of my body can’t keep up. After the struggle of my failing proportions, I am at the bottom of the steps and near a tall box filled with the toys I used to have as a kid. After what seemed like hours of searching, I found an old Barbie doll, who’s hair is teased and littered with marker blemishes. I chastise myself for not taking care of the poor doll. I had thrown her away long ago, never taking consideration that she might appear into my life again. Similar to the doll in my hand, I find another, whose features are also hidden by the curse of the red Crayola marker. Then, I play. My eyes feel stale by the time the hour is up from the hideous game that I had been playing. Still, no thought had crept into my mind, nor an ounce of happiness to be gained from the tedious doll play. 

But then, I do see something. The cloud in my mind has vanished and I can see a plot, clearly situated at the top of my mind. I hold on to it, coursing up the stairs of the basement and back to my room, refusing to let this idea dissolve. I can see the girl who falls in love, only to be heartbroken. I can see the ending how everything comes together and the beautiful girl has the happy ending she deserves, but again, by the time my pencil reaches the blank piece of paper the plot is gone, evaporating into the thin air around me. 

I can’t take it anymore. The tears that have been threatening to fall have finally come, streaming down my cheeks like a flowing river that has been waiting for the dam to fall. I cry and I keep crying until I have no more tears to wet my dense face. 

After I have rubbed my eyes dry, I fall back into the article that is supposed to heal my writing wounds. Freewrite. That is the next idea on the list. I sigh, knowing that if I can’t seem to clutch even a good starting sentence for my story, how will I ever be able to write anything? I shush the little voice in my head that says to skip this suggestion and I decide to force myself to complete the task. Here is what I came up with. 

I can’t write. No matter what I do, my ideas break like the ice on a faulty frozen lake. I try to clear my mind, I try to relocate myself, I try to Google the answer to this impossible disease, but I can’t. Nothing I do will work, the only thing left to do now is wait. Time is what will heal me. The more I try to force myself to grab the ideas that are just out of reach, the more I will kill myself trying. What I need to do is try to forget. I need to try and clear my mind, because no matter how many times I’ve cleared my mind before it was never truly wiped. There was always that hint of doubt that never left. The little devil on my shoulder that told me I would never create the masterpiece I was striving for. This whole time I thought that I would find my a-ha moment and all my worries would disappear, but I guess that was a lost hope. 

I leave my freewrite to itself and decide to doze off to sleep, maybe a night’s rest will do me good. At least my blank page now has something written on it. The freewrite does not do the page justice though. That blank page was just waiting to harness the most perfect story that I was supposed to supply. Anger, once again, oozes into me, but I shut it right out when I close my eyes and drift off to sleep. 

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It’s 12 AM at night and I just woke up to do another freewrite. My thoughts were keeping me awake anyway. I guess what I want to say is that to those who struggle with writer’s block like me, I’m sorry. It’s a painful journey, but you will get through it, hopefully. I still technically haven’t reached the end of the terrible road called blank pages, but I’m sure one day I will fill them with the most beautiful words. I guess I did have my a-ha moment after all, the a-ha moment is just that sometimes there is no a-ha moment.