Writer's Pains

God, I hate those days.

I'm sure you've had them too, those monstrous piles of hours that you spend sitting in front of a white page. Well, sepia in my case if you really want to know. Okay, granted, you probably don't - but hey, you've learned something important about me today, isn't that great? I prefer sepia over white. Big shock, eh? Surely the mind blowing twist of the year.

So while you procrastinate over meaningless details like favorite background colors, the cursor blinks away the scarce time you have set aside for the supposedly best occupation in the world: writing! You stare at the accusing void and alternate between cursing your stupid, unfocused mind and your poor imagination. Eventually your spouse comes home and casually remarks that your hobby doesn't look nearly as much fun as you keep insisting it is. You snap at him and use your feigned anger as an excuse to skip shared dinner. Instead you lock yourself into your room, hoping that you've managed to lock your creativity in with you. If only creativity had a neck, so you could tie a leash around it…

"Pleeease mum, can I keep him?" You think in a whiny child's voice, "I promise I'll take Sparky out for a walk every day! Don't you worry, I won't forget to feed him and take him to the vet."

Jeez, just look at that scabby mutt at your feet. Maybe your flea-bitten creativity needs a vitamin shot or something.

Anyway, no matter how much you rack your brain, the sepia page - or white, or black, or neon pink… seriously, neon pink? Who the hell can concentrate looking at that hideous abomination of color? Alright, alright, it's your page. Use whatever color you prefer, just don't complain to me if it eventually gives you eye cancer.

But back to the point. Desperate to get something onto the page you line up your characters and have a heart to heart talk with them. Your cast turns out to be enthusiastic, they trust their author; heaven knows why, it's not like you've done them much justice so far. Nevertheless, you think:  'Action!' or simply: 'Go!' and they instantly slip into their designated roles, like the real pro's they are. You're just glad that someone in this tragicomedy turns out to be professional and eager to follow their example you start to write down what they're playing out for you in your mind.

And boy, are they good! They act and emote their hearts out, they breeze across the sketchy scenery, bring the cardboard props, you haven't even bothered to paint yet, to full life with their interactions and their dialog is just divine. They make you weep and laugh, you shiver with fear when they face the monsters you throw at them and their bravery makes you wonder how these marvelous beings ever came into existence. You simply cannot comprehend how they could have possibly sprung from your boring little brain.

Your fingers dance across the keyboard, nimbly tapping the letters to the rhythm of your characters. Finally, the page is filling. You feel the feverish excitement gripping you, drawing you into the story. You become a part of your play, not as the omnipotent creator others might take you for but as a conductor. Skillfully you direct the general theme, yet you are wise enough to rely on your fictional friends to breathe harmonious life into your symphony.

Exhausted you slouch back into your chair. A satisfied grin on your flushed face you replay the final chords of this masterpiece. So beautiful!

Wallowing in vast gratitude for life in general and imagination in particular you look at your players and find them awkwardly staring back at you. The supporting characters smile politely, shrug and turn away. The antagonist glares at you, threateningly clenching his fists, and even the two-dimensional cutouts find surprisingly nuanced ways to express their disappointment.

Puzzled you turn to your protagonist, one of your best friends for many years. "What's the matter?" you ask him.

He puffs out his cheeks and scratches his head. "It's just…well… is that really the best you can do?"

Thunderstruck you scroll to the top of your page and start reading. The scarlet blotches of entrancement on your cheeks turn a dark crimson of embarrassment as you skim over your work. Instead of a spicy dish of delicious writing you encounter a disgusting clot of ill-combined words. Somehow you have managed to drown the crispy metaphors your characters have bestowed on you in an oily sludge of saturated clichés, bound to give the reader heartburn. The stilted dialog, bearing no resemblance to the clever colloquies you witnessed, feels like stale leftovers from a first-grader's homework.

Oh my god, is it bad!

You scrub your hands over your face and consider changing your background color to distract yourself from the hideous writing. All of a sudden neon pink doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

The sound of soft scratching saves you from risking your eyesight. You turn your head and see Sparky scraping at the door. He whimpers and you start to feel sorry for him, almost as much as for yourself. With a sigh you untie the leash from your creativity and set him free. He instantly breaks away from your stuffy room; But then he stops and looks at you with his faithful doggy eyes, encouragingly wagging his tail. He waits for you. Reluctantly you get up and take him for a walk. What else can you do? It's just one of those days.

Author's Note

I hope you have nearly as much fun reading as I had writing it ;-)
As always - all comments are most welcome!

Reviews

[odium]

So, I'm the only one who gets up at 2:00 A.M. after a dream and writes for hours on end without pause or problem? Nevermind that, I loved your writing! You captured the struggles of every writer in an interesting and hilarious way. Especially the "Oh my god, it is bad!" part, a crushing realization for us all. Well done!

[Kaliope]

Oh, lucky you if never get writer's block. I don't get it all that often but I am quite prone to procrastination and sometimes those two things go hand in hand :-)
Thanks for the read and your kind words!

[Samuel Dickens]

Humour is always better than grief and upset, so I think we all can relate. At least Sparky got to go for his walk. I've found that I can never make myself write. If ideas and inspiration fall upon me at once and the house is perfectly quiet, I might be able to scribble something.

[Kaliope]

I guess everyone has to find his/her own approach when it comes to writing. Unfortunately all the guidebooks I read were adamant on the idea that you have to write regularly, no matter what. Took a while to realize that this doesn't work for me. Now I'm searching for the right balance between discipline and creative leisure - who knows, maybe someday I'll find it :-)

[TheWordWanderer]

This was really funny. The continued referral to neon pink really made me laugh. This is just the babbling voice of an overactive mind (or in simple terms... a writer) I know all of these feelings, the frustration when your imagination eludes you, the crippling self doubt that further adds to the constrictions placed on your creativity. It is interesting how you feel that the characters themselves create the story as if they are separate entities. If I thought about it this way, and simply discovered the characters by allowing them to roam free spontaneously then perhaps my stories would actually get somewhere that isn't a dead end. The dog metaphor worked well. It shows that creativity cannot be forced but finds you in its own time. it also shows that we can be the ones to tie down our creativity. If we just let it go, "took it for a walk" then we may find greater inspiration. Or have i missed the point of that metaphor?

[Kaliope]

So glad you liked it! Yes, I believe that letting go is necessary and going for a walk - metaphorically and literally - has often provided me with new inspiration. But even when it doesn't help - that's okay too, sometimes we just need a break. Everything is fair in writing and nothing is so serious that we should loose our sense of humor :-)
As to the way I see my characters... yes, they can come alive to point where I am no longer creating their story but just watching it and writing it down. But - to be honest - as magical as those moments are, they happen rather rarely. Nevertheless I always try to think of my characters as people, not my creations. People kind enough to tell me their story and entrust me with the task of passing it on. Might sound a bit crazy - yeah, I probably am - but it works best for me. :-)

[TheWordWanderer]

That's the best way to create realistic characters I think. Flawed characters, with all the blemishes and ugly variables of human nature. Would you mind taking a look at my work? Only because I'm new here and I've received only a few responses

[Kaliope]

Sure, just send me a reading request or private message. It might take a view days, depending on my backlog and the length of your work, but I try my best to review all story requests (poems are a different story though, I'm really not good at reviewing them :-))

[JMKane117]

Ahh, sepia. What a word. I'm going to incorporate that somehow (if you don't mind).

I don't think there's even anything grammatically wrong with it that I could help with.

I doubt I can express more praise for this more than anyone else. I resonated with every line. In a weird way you now have me looking forward to one of those days, but just one day. And Sparky was just the best metaphor I've seen in a long time.

I should've read this sooner, and will definitely be re-reading again on one of those days. That was crazy good.

[Kaliope]

Thank you so much, your praise means a lot to me. And by all means - use sepia if you like, it's a terribly underrepresented word ;-)

[M. Black]

this is literally the story of my life :) I loved it.

[Kaliope]

Thank you for reviewing, much appreciated :-)

[Dave K]

This is wonderful work. Every writer can relate to sentiment expressed. It gives me hope to read this, to know that good writers struggle, and stare at a blank page, and then presto, a great piece emerges. This was so much fun to read.

[Kaliope]

Thank you for your lovely review, it feels great to hear that I have managed to entertain with my little exhibit of active procrastination :-)

[AE]

Just had a few of those days. I think I'm out of it now though. It will return soon enough.

I really like the part when you said, "Puzzled, you turn to your protagonist... 'It's just…well… is that really the best you can do?'"

Oh that really sucks. I mean, even my protagonist, who I made up, for God's sake, is dissatisfied! Then I go and rapidly check and realise that the quality of all that work I just did is only equivalent to that of a sad, deformed, t**d.

Great job.

[Kaliope]

Yes, characters can be a bit cruel when dissatisfied, but i guess that's only fair considering what we writers put them through ;-)

Thank you for reading and reviewing, much appreciated! And I hope you're through your tough period, I certainly know how frustrating that can be.

[Tomoe Tellez]

Oh my god! You have no idea how much I loved this! I write mostly fantasy and I see my characters just like that. Well, actually just one, I call her the writer, she sees the characters like that, or maybe I'm just going crazy, ja. And the sepia paper, reminded me of parchment paper. Oh, the inspiration I'd get with that, but I use black because of eyesight problems I was born with. I'll put this in my library for darker times, I'm going to need it. A very great piece of writing and inspiration, thank you for sharing.

[Kaliope]

Haha, I had so much fun writing this particular piece and it's a wonderful feeling to see that others enjoy it too :-) Thank you for reading and reviewing!

[JoeM]

Yes, I did enjoy it. Thank god for a delete button. Sometimes, just write, doesn't matter if it's crap, salvation is at hand with that button. In the meantime ........... what block.

[Kaliope]

Well, I rarely delete, I just shove the ugly stuff to a far corner of my hard disk. But I agree, it's good to know that the delete button is there, just in case :-)

Thank you for your review and I'm glad you enjoyed my work!

[ApKWrites]

I loved it!
It's very well written, descriptive and so, soooooo true!
I really enjoyed reading it:)
Thank you

[Kaliope]

Thank you for your lovely review!

[Chris]

Distractions need attention too...

[Kaliope]

So true. Sometimes they even require a story dedicated to them :-)

[Chris]

don't we all...