Like most writers, at least most honest writers, there are times that beginning to write feels like an insurmountable task. Simply impossible.
So the laptop gets shut. The notebooks--oh how many notebooks I have--remain dormant. Unsullied by my semi-legible scrawl.
Then hours pass. Weeks. Sometimes even (and this hurts to admit) months. And the desire to write fades. Supplanted completely with the fear that I haven't written in X minutes, X hours, X days.
It's like falling off a horse and being frightened to get back on. The longer the layoff the more I'm trying to prove myself. To prove that this layoff was worthwhile.
That's complete and utter bullshit.
Time off does not create good writing. Or good thinking. All it creates is wasted minutes. Minutes spent fretting. Trying to psych myself up. Taking care of that little thing that I've been putting off for far too long as long as that thing isn't writing.
Then, on an unsuspecting day, an urge to link ideas together reintroduces itself. Manifesting in the only way I know how to express ideas.
Writing.
I sit down and write out some nonsense. Then something with a bit more sense. Then something I'm vaguely happy with.
And it all comes rushing back.
The power of words. The excitement of sentences. The power to bend language to my whim. Coursing through my veins like some mystical power that has been graciously bestowed upon me.
Because the ability to write was never truly lost. The rest of me just got in the way. Remembering that is an exhilarating feeling.