Happiness is a warm Keyboard=I live to and love to write

Stepping away from writing for a day can sometimes extend into an unintended emptiness of words. For someone who has always had stories and thoughts swirling in her head, filling up any given downtime, it was happiness disrupting when my warm keyboard grew cold.

After weeks of trying to write, I thought, “Okay that’s it, I‘ve run out of imagination, used it all up…I am no longer a storyteller.” That thought was disheartening because it felt prophetic as I sat in front of the harsh white screen with a blinking cursor mocking me.

My thoughts ping ponged from, ‘There has to be a story in me to unearth’, to ’maybe I’ll see what’s on the tube or "It’s such a nice day I’ll go for a walk.’ I’d chosen those distractions more times than I’d like to admit until I forced my frustrated self to stay there and write something…anything...even that high school typing exercise: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog...and I typed that full alphabet line over and over again...ad nauseam.

When a writer loses their flowing mental script it’s difficult to rationalize that the block is temporary, that it will dissolve, but there's not a lot of faith in that when you’re literally groping for words or context.

If belief in talent breeds confidence, then the loss of that belief breeds frustration and self doubt. The fear that the loss of words could be permanent causes a debilitating reaction which causes the block to remain in place. I tried to move it using some writer’s help tools. I began a journal of daily writing exercises that were touted to get the author’s thoughts flowing again. I’ll admit to some success, I wrote beginnings of prose and silly ramblings but a burst of inspiration…that has yet to occur…but I do have hope.

For now I'm revisiting stories, looking for errors, adjusting dialogue, while I wait for that spark of a new tale to ignite, or for that massive block to roll down a proverbial mountain. I’m even reading the dictionary, a random set of three pages a day, hoping words and their definitions will inspire my curiosity and lead me to a story but… I must say….that is one tedious reading task.

I just turned to the T’s and here is what I read:

Tea: noun, an aromatic beverage prepared from tea leaves by soaking them in boiling water.

Hmmmm…I think that word has brewed a thought…and sparked an image...I’ve been moved to set the kettle on the stove, bring it to a boil and enjoy the reality of that word...but please continue to watch this space (cursor blinking) I'm sure Inspiration is coming soon…

Thanks for listening