Stories await the telling, scenes the description, ideas the unfolding. Terror that time will run out and the long list of magic truth will be locked away in my grave. Horror that the stories are trite, scenes familiar, ideas old compost. Of course they are, I console myself. But your telling, your words, your angle is new. Uniquely yours. Important to at least one other person. I stare at the blank page.
Revulsion boils up. I hate this. I hate the stories that wait to be finished, the stories half done, the stories not started. They taunt me from my imagination—I can never give them life. They will never be good enough, never true to the inspiration, never worthy of a reader’s scrutiny.
Just write it, I urge myself. Write and the vision will unfold. The character will speak his voice and reveal his future. Let the fingers fly over the keys. Words will form and the story will be wonderful.
But wait.
There’s laundry I should start, or I’ll have no clean underwear tomorrow. Floors long past grim, perhaps fifteen minutes with the broom. There’s a call to be made. A business matter to tend. A window framing spring drizzle, grass greening. Thank god.
denelecampbell 