My Ideas Are Plentiful. My Motivation Is Scarce

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Abstract

I like to look at the treetop branches across the neighborhood. As they sway in the wind, I gather my thoughts and work out sentences in my head. And before I even know it, my fingers shoot across the keyboard, putting those fragments floating around my head into prose.The window is my go-to trick for calming my whirring brain and allowing me to make sense of the feelings and moment I am trying to capture on the page. It is like a writing meditation where I take a breath, recenter, and find my flow again.The window trick is not working.Right now, I have to fight for every word I get onto the page. My fingers, rather than being agile interpreters of my thoughts, they have to be commanded to move. I must remind them where the keys are. My eyes must guide them to their home. They move slowly, hesitantly, as if asking, “Are you sure that is what you want to write?”The idea is there. Phrases and sentences and paragraphs dance around my head. They seem complete, fully formulated, and ready to appear — just as they always had — but just as I attempt to latch onto one, it crumbles, turns to dust, and floats away.It feels like the conduit from my internal workings to the outside world has collapsed. I have a bloated back up of ideas behind the damage. Inside of me, ideas seem to flow, but they cannot escape.

Options

They pile up and clutter around in the dusty corners of my grey matter. Periodically, one moves around, floating into my consciousness just long enough for that title to make it onto the page.When one thought gets a bit of mobility, others start trying to break free. Next thing I know, my head is full of a jumble of ideas that long for freedom, that want to see the light of day, that want to breathe. But they are stuck.My head turns to the window, an automatic gesture, a retreat to safety, an attempt to settle the buzzing. A move to coax my fingers to make sense of the tangled web of fragments into something sensical, meaningful, beautiful.I wait, paralyzed, suffocating on the creativity that I cannot liberate.Several futile moments pass.Then, I abandon the title to my draft folder.Kimi is a recovering corporate engineer figuring out what’s next. She is a Boston area freelance writer with work featured in <a href="https://herstryblg.com/true/2020/1/1/motorcycle-riding-through-grief-and-separation">HerStry</a>, For Women Who Roar, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, The MOON Magazine, Backroads, and Culture. Follow her at <a href="http://noreturnticket.kceridon.com/">NoReturnTicket.kceridon.com</a> or as [at]WordsbyKimi on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.</article></body>

Capitalizing on my creative thoughts feels just out of reach

I’m going to keep this short because I fear that if I don’t, my brain will seize on this next shiny object and abandon this post altogether. Usually, when an idea for a story strikes me, I can sit down and run with it, scribbling or typing whatever comes to mind. But, right now, I can’t seem to move past the idea stage.

Since social distancing started, I’ve started dozens of drafts. A topic comes to me, and I rush to scribble down a title. I tweak the idea for a little bit and run the headline through an analyzer. I might even get as far as a subtitle.

Then, I freeze.

I sit staring at the screen the trying to will the words to come out and spill onto the page, but the cursor just stubbornly stays in place, blinking, teasing, mocking.

I look out the window of my office — something I often do when I hit a pause in my writing. I like to look at the treetop branches across the neighborhood. As they sway in the wind, I gather my thoughts and work out sentences in my head. And before I even know it, my fingers shoot across the keyboard, putting those fragments floating around my head into prose.

The window is my go-to trick for calming my whirring brain and allowing me to make sense of the feelings and moment I am trying to capture on the page. It is like a writing meditation where I take a breath, recenter, and find my flow again.

The window trick is not working.

Right now, I have to fight for every word I get onto the page. My fingers, rather than being agile interpreters of my thoughts, they have to be commanded to move. I must remind them where the keys are. My eyes must guide them to their home. They move slowly, hesitantly, as if asking, “Are you sure that is what you want to write?”

The idea is there. Phrases and sentences and paragraphs dance around my head. They seem complete, fully formulated, and ready to appear — just as they always had — but just as I attempt to latch onto one, it crumbles, turns to dust, and floats away.

It feels like the conduit from my internal workings to the outside world has collapsed. I have a bloated back up of ideas behind the damage. Inside of me, ideas seem to flow, but they cannot escape. They pile up and clutter around in the dusty corners of my grey matter. Periodically, one moves around, floating into my consciousness just long enough for that title to make it onto the page.

When one thought gets a bit of mobility, others start trying to break free. Next thing I know, my head is full of a jumble of ideas that long for freedom, that want to see the light of day, that want to breathe. But they are stuck.

My head turns to the window, an automatic gesture, a retreat to safety, an attempt to settle the buzzing. A move to coax my fingers to make sense of the tangled web of fragments into something sensical, meaningful, beautiful.

I wait, paralyzed, suffocating on the creativity that I cannot liberate.

Several futile moments pass.

Then, I abandon the title to my draft folder.

Kimi is a recovering corporate engineer figuring out what’s next. She is a Boston area freelance writer with work featured in HerStry, For Women Who Roar, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, The MOON Magazine, Backroads, and Culture. Follow her at NoReturnTicket.kceridon.com or as [at]WordsbyKimi on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.