Thursday, October 27, 2016

The Blank Page Terror

It's been almost a year since I stopped writing. The refuge of words and sentences, ideas and metaphors, worlds and characters became a torture device. I lost my words. The blank page terrified me with menaces of my own inadequacy.

Today, I take my kingdom back.

Today, I am a writer again. I am tasting words carefully, treading deep waters, trying to rekindle the alchemy that transforms thought into prose. I will no longer depend on the whims of inspiration - as the years fly, I find more and more that inspiration is overrated. If you think, you are. Me, if I think, I write. Even if this looks like nonsense to you, it is precious to me, because with every word I fight the blank page terror.

The universe puts us in different places and situations so that we could learn. What I learned from this very long hiatus is that one should never give up hope. Just as land needs fallow to become fertile again, the creative mind needs numbness and silence. I decided that my numbness lasted way too long.

I will not share my personal losses and disasters that shattered my heart. I always looked at heart shards as pieces of mosaic - when you put them back together, the new pattern is more beautiful. Now, as I have rebuilt my heart, as I moved on, I can say with certainty that this new spiritual structure yearns for a comeback, for being what I have always been - a writer. 

I embrace the blank page terror. I make it my own. I am writing.