When The Spark Dies
A crawl from the dirt of desperation
The wind inside my mind picked up and carried away with it any passing thoughts about what I was writing. The only thing it could focus on was the fact that I didn’t want to be typing anything down at that moment. The page was not blank, but what it was filled with was almost no better. Instead of hovering over the delete key, I exited the app and fought the urge to fling my computer across the room.
A familiar feeling to any creative, I’m sure.
Lately, the winds have gathered and in all their mighty bluster brought storm clouds with them. Ones that interrogated my passion and thwarted any starting attempts. Someone took a chainsaw to the structural integrity of my writing and leaves it teetering on the edge. Somewhere between falling safely back down onto its foundation or off the cliff entirely.
I’m just clinging to any semblance of a sentence.
The excitement I had in my approach now fades when I question where the hell to take a piece next. I find myself envying past me’s who could open a page and just bang it out. That stealth and surprising confidence is nowhere to be found, and I’m on the verge of tossing out another work. I don’t like any of it. Coherence doesn’t seem to want to come out to play, and so I move on to the next thing, hoping it will be different.
What’s that definition of insanity, again?
Writer’s block would be kinder than this. The ideas are there and whip up into a frenzy, joining the currents of my mind. A second of sunlight through the cumulonimbus convention going on. Snuffed out as soon as the wind upgrades to gale force and now everything is shuttered under threat of a hurricane. I hate storms, even worse when it’s one from within. Sometimes I wonder if all writers are like the marooned, holed up in a cave marking down not days, but the pieces they’ve abandoned.
Stranded shores seem like inevitable bedfellows.
Onwards I’ll persist, as I feel I have no choice. The grave is firmly dug, and the worms are awaiting their feast, but the tastiest morsel always seems just out of reach. Now, I fear, the metaphors have well and truly taken over. I now a willing serf in their linguistic fiefdom. Oh no, this has really gone too far. A clock is right twice a day, as it goes, so I’ll be here till the next hour strikes.
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