
The ideas keep coming. I frantically find a way to capture them. When I sit to transfer the ideas on the page, the words aren’t there. I scrunch my eyes. Concentrate. My fingers feel the keys. Some words stumble their way out. Oh, but the way they were strung together in my head comes out in broken chunks that I am unable to place back together. I chip and polish with all the tools I have acquired. Then I stand back to admire the work, and shake my head in shame. This hurts. It pinches around my chest.
Let’s label it a creative slump. I’ve had those before, but never to these depths. The creativity is there, in my head. However the execution is way off target. There are many things I can point the blame at. It is probably the culmination of these things that have brought it on. How can you be fresh when you are stuck at home for months. And doing that with young kids means there is little time to sit at the desk to type. Not that my study is my sanctuary anymore. I’m grateful that hubby is able to continue working, but he has taken over half my study and I think it is ok to be slightly resentful of the intrusion. The days are long, the nights restless and anxiety knocks on the door. Fatigue is the word I am using now. It sums it up best. Over it, weary from everything and unable to do much about it. Guess it was only a matter of time before it would infect my writing.
Staying at home with nowhere to be should produce ideal writing conditions. Turns out, not for me. Clearly I could never be that writer who hires a cabin overlooking a scenic vista for two weeks with no technology. Day one, I would knock up an hour or two of writing, take off for a walk and head straight towards the village to get myself back to the chaos of home. But home has more chaos now because it has no structure. Nothing to mark the days. Except virtual church on Sunday and the daily one hour of exercise. Even that is getting boring.
So much to say, no words to say it. I am in the depths of a second novel. Story has been set up, main players introduced, an abundance of tension and battles and I know how it will all plan out. I can joyfully sit outside in the (now) spring sun and immerse myself into that world. It plays out perfectly in my head as though I am sitting in the cinema watching. Yet I shuffle a few metres inside to the computer and fumble my way through the scenes before calling it a day. Or, week as it has been. That hurts. It has never been this bad.
The words are resisting me, so time to stop pushing. I need something else I can immerse myself in. I crave knowledge, the ability to fill up the well with new information on something I know nothing about. Recently I found myself tuning my ear into my environment and picking up on the bird calls. If I had any slither of coolness attached to me, it has been stripped off as I now declare myself an amateur birdwatcher. Naturally there are apps for this and so far I’m up to 31 different bird species I have successfully witnessed. Not satisfied with just watching, I had to step it up to taking photos of them. And here opens a new vortex to tumble into. I won’t go into details except to say I finally know how to use the digital camera that I had given up on thanks to the camera phone. I have no doubt a future novel will contain a character who is a twitcher, or an ornithologist. Actually, probably a wildlife photographer, for just a little street cred.
Have I found the words? Not yet, but I have managed to open the tap a fraction more.