It’s the kind of freezing that comes when the gremlins visit, or Gollum—with his haunting voice of doubt and unworthiness—choking out inspiration—choking out hope. The freezing stops me in my tracks and all my giddiness that rose up with the idea of trying to write. Then I get into a sword fight with myself. The back and forth of carefully crafted explanations. The whys and arguing myself out of this perfectly sensible idea in my head. Back and forth—back and forth until I’m anguished and exhausted from swinging my sword either for or against—and I put my pen, my sword down. I’ve got boxes of pens and swords I have set aside. My journals with layouts of triumphant conquests. Pages filled with painful musings of a lost and harrowing childhood hidden in the dark caverns of a mountain off in the distance, yet always looming and ever-present. A looming mountain with steep ascending sides where you start up in all your best gear and still find yourself tripping—slipping with rocks rumbling under your feet—and grasping for any handhold—a boulder, a tree branch, anything before
possibly falling, falling, falling to imminent death. The death of a story never started. It’s the kind of mountain with a cruel and unforgiving monster hurling fire down from the peak. That’s my mountain. I’m frozen, clinging to the side of it. Do I go forth? Do I follow the trail of inspiration—thaw and let the writing flow?
250 words of 1000 - 6.4.22