when the imaginary world goes silent
Sometimes I sit in coffee shops for hours, headphones in, pen in hand, notebook opened. But I pen no words of substance. The ear buds sit snugly in my hear with no music. And my coffee grows luke warm and disappointing. My brain is lost again, slipped out of its collar and wandered from home.
I need to find it.
Writers block is a scary thing. I feel as if I lose a part of my identity when I cannot articulate words onto a page. I feel like a part of me is missing. I feel less than myself, less than what I am capable of. When the pen ceases to hit the page, I cease to exist. I wander into the shell of a person who once loved life through the creation of ideas and stories. I always laugh at the joke about writers block, how its when your imaginary friends stop talking to you. Your characters go on a silent strike and leave you feeling boring and ordinary. I would never want to feel ordinary after feeling the fullness in my heart after publishing an article, or finishing a chapter. But sometimes that mental blockage deems itself to be noticed and sticks around way after the ending credits making it impossible to clean.
Writers block is like having an elongated stomach flu or cold, but its all in your head. It puts all of your creative life on hold, and clutter just builds and builds in your brain until you cant even find your bed anymore and you're just sleeping on a heap of untouched ideas and half finished story lines. Your characters fade, and eventually become people of your past. Forgotten. I don't want to forget anymore. They say that writing through the rut, allowing yourself to write shit, is the only way to declutter your flu ridden noggin. But what happens when you sit in front of that blank page and nothing happens. You aren't compelled to create and the page remains blank.
There are so many instances where I sit in front of the computer, or with my notebook open, and I just stare. I try to get lost in thought enough to invoke some sort of feeling, one enough to spark any kind of writing. And lately, it's been radio silence. I scribble how much I hate myself for not being able to create. I curse my brain, I curse my characters, and my surroundings. Sometimes, I feel as if it will never come back. That the only friend I have had consistently since I was seven years old, just left without so much as a farewell note.
The scariest moment is the moment I question myself as a writer. Curse myself for not picking something practical. It stirs and uneasy feeling in my soul. And usually, if I am particularly lucky, I begin to write again.
When the imaginary world goes silent, I forget who I am. Because Kierstin without writing, is never a Kierstin I want to be. I am a writer. I create things of substance. I pen words that resonate with people around me. When the imaginary world goes silent, it shakes up my world and somehow always reminds me of who I am and who I always have been.
Time to bring the imaginary world back to life.
No more silence.