Writers Block

Writers block is the bane of my life.

I sit here now, head bent over my desk, a reading light flickering dimly overhead. The blank piece of unlined paper under my sharpened number two pencil has remained unfortunately white for the past hour and a half, no matter how hard I will it to fill itself up with wonderful words of wisdom. Instead, it stares at me with one big wide eye, and laughs. Oh, yes, paper laughs. The sound is dry, and very high-pitched. Something like what a chihuahua might chortle like if it were on marijuana.

Frustrated, I slam my pencil down on the desk. Again. There's a small, almost unnoticeable, indent of the wood where I've performed the act before. A small niche that fits the pencil perfectly is stained with ink from pens broken during others of my small tantrums. Sighing in what I want to be a contented way, I lean back and balance my chair on the hind legs. My eyes are closed, so I don't have to stare at my lack of inspiration, but it taps me on the shoulder anyway.

When I turn to see who has disrupted me tonight, I'm both disappointed and gladdened. It's not often I get nighttime visits from this particular piece of unwritten majesty.

"Evening," I say, nodding to the man. "Decided to come and ramble about your latest escapades?"

"No," he says slowly, uttering the word as though it were a question. "I was going to ask you why that little ... masterpiece is ever so pale and transparent."

"Ha ha," I say sarcastically. "Perhaps it's because you won't do anything chaotic in my head."

"It's your imagination, toots. You're going to have to come up with something that tickles the readers sick fancy on your pretty little own."

"What, not even a joke? A badly worded pun? A sentence full of big words a college professor wouldn't understand?" I tease, feeling a tingle of fear in my spine. I still tremble at the thought of his knife, though it pierces nothing but my ego.

He sits himself down on the corner of my desk, crosses his hands and legs, and stares down at me innocently. "Not a brilliant word or idea from me, sweetheart. You'll have to make me do something crazy."

"You're here," I mutter. "That's crazy enough in itself. Maybe I'll write about how, in moments of desperate need, my characters - though I don't own most of them - visit me in my room. My psychiatrist will be especially happy to hear about you."

"Me?" he asks, putting a hand delicately on his chest. "Well, my cheeks are turning all red. Metaphorically, of course."

"Of course."

"Y'know," he says slowly, seeming completely unaware that one of his hands has woven itself into the air. "I think ... there's inspiration everywhere. All around. You're just not looking hard enough. Why, take the newspaper, for example," he says, grabbing the nearest one and shaking it straight. "All sorts of lovely and sadly underdone crimes to be inspired by. Take these, add some twists and turns, maybe a little ... gasoline ... and I'll be back in business by the morning."

"I'm already stealing DC Comics' finest," I said, waving the suggestion away. "I can't take the ideas of the common dirtbag on the street."

"Well, you need ideas," he says, strangling an invisible victim. "And without any of your wonderfully written ideas, all I do is sit in that secret corner of your mind and wait for you to have a perverted dream to waltz into."

"Disgusting," says a soft voice. The two of us turn, seeing the slightly shimmering outline of a boy standing in the corner next to my bed. "Why you're inspired by such obvious filth, I'll never know."

"Thank you."

"Shut up, you," I say, waving my finger at the both of them. "If you start fighting again, I'm leaving you out of all future endeavors."

While the older man pouts down at me in a comically childish way, the younger steps up behind me so softly I find it hard to believe he's moved at all. A cold hand rests on my shoulder. "Come now," says the boy. "Do you not think I'm much ... er ... nicer to write about than he is?"

"In one way," I say carefully. "In others, not as much. It all depends on the genre."

"She likes me be-tter," the man teases. "Go sparkle in a crowd of fangirls, will you?"

"Only if you smile in a crowd of them first," he retorts. "You could be cutting them open, and they'd be hanging off of you anyway."

"At least my fans are older than twelve."

"Stop!" I say, feeling that inspiration would be much more tolerable in a less surreal form. "You're not helping me at all, you know! Do you want to be part of anything in the near future, or not?"

"It is not about us," says a deep, familiar voice from the doorway. I laugh out loud when I see who it is this time. "It is about you, young one. Do not forget that."

"Really?" the cold boy says, a hint of a laugh in his voice.

"Wow, sweetheart, you really are stumped, aren't you?"

"I must be," I say miserably. I swivel to face the newcomer. "You know, you were more ... nice-looking in the movie."

He chuckles low in his throat. "I suppose I was portrayed as a king might be - powerful, and yet lovable all at once."

"Your son did you justice, I'll give you that," I say, feeling a yawn bubbling up in my chest. "Anyway," I say, pausing to let it out. "I hadn't realized I needed to be inspired by a lion. Am I really that bad?"

"Yeah."

"Of course not!"

"No, child. You are just lost. You need to find your way again - into the words, behind what they say. Into the story that continues after the author declares it the end. Find that story, and write it."

"Careful with that," says yet another new voice. "Or you'll become lost in them entirely."

"You should be careful," I reply tiredly, rubbing a knuckle into my eyes. "Not to set fire to my bedroom, like you did last time."

The ginger-haired man laughs, sitting comfortably in a chair opposite myself. "It left no tangible impression on this page of your book," he said easily. "And, besides, you were the one who wanted to hear me speak to fire. It's not my fault fire in this story is so deaf and dumb."

"Oh, yeah, insult fire," I say. "That'll make it happy. Anyway, why haven't you appeared in a flash of inspiration, either? Are you all rallying together in a, 'Let Her Struggle In Her Own Misery For A While,' protest of some sort?"

"Don't be silly," says the handsome boy. "Don't you know yet? Flashes of inspiration come from you, not from us."

"Yeah, if they came from us, libraries would have been filled by now," the first man said, waving a potato peeler at me. "You're just a little slow right now, sweetheart. Don't worry. Much."

"Don't chide the poor girl," the king scolds. "She will write when the time is right."

"I hope so," says an accented voice. "Otherwise I'll be stuck under that cupboard until next Christmas."

"Oh, the second scar face. I'm the original, you know."

"And I'm the one who would defeat you, if I could," says the boy, turning to look at me with a smile. "Take me back to my home, will you? With my friends, where I belong. You stopped writing when I was back ... home, if you could call it that. I'd really like to leave, if you please."

"Soon," I say, crossing my fingers.

"I suppose I should thank you for leaving me home," says another, twirling a ball of flame from finger to finger. "And I should also say you're welcome for leaving to visit you."

"They make it sound as though it's a chore to visit you," says the boy with golden eyes. "I assure you, it's far from that."

"Stop that," says the first man, disgust clear in his oily voice. "I think I'm going to puke all over your well-worded kiss-up."

"No need to be rude," the English boy says.

"And no need to quarrel so, children!"

"Don't make me cut that mane off!"

"Only after I set fire to your poorly painted face!"

"Could you at least take your fighting elsewhere?"

"Could you shut your trap for ten seconds?"

"I say, there really is no need for this foolishness!"

"I've got it!" I shout, jumping to my feet and raising a fist in triumph. "The flash of inspiration I needed!"

The five of them turned to look at me in silent surprise, before bursting into question all at once.

"Good, child. What is your new idea?"

"What is it? Tell me it involves a castle, and broomsticks, please!"

"Out with it, sweetheart. I want to mentally prepare myself for my next great criminal adventure."

"Something burning with passion, I hope?"

"Is it a romance, perhaps, or a tale of misery and newfound love?"

"None of the above," I say, seating myself once again and turning away from them all. "I'm going to be a lawyer."