It's another sleepless night. I don't know how many I've had recently. I suppose I shouldn't say entirely sleepless, but I don't think dozing off at dawn for less than thirty minutes before work should really count as sleep, do you? At this point, I don't even really know what to write about. I think that's my problem.
For months now, I've been crippled in my writing. I know, even as I write these inconsequential little stories, that they are total shit. Look at that; I can't even think of a better way to say my stories are terrible. Sure, I keep writing, but I know every word is as lacklustre as the last. And yet, despite being so conscious of this, I go on, as if maybe the next sentence will have substance. Maybe the next chapter will tell a worthwhile story. As the months have passed, my hope is depleting. Truly, I'm in a near state of desperation. Looking at my work now . . . well, it's near painful for me. I may put it out there, but I know it's junk - no better than a bad sitcom on television or a predictable harlequin. My goal was never to even write romance. When I started writing seriously, I wanted to write fantasies and dramatic personal stories about young people I found in my imagination. So I did. For a long time, the stories came along and showed promise. Even when I read them over now, I can see, amongst the rubble of first drafts, better stories being told. But it seems I have regressed. My ideas began to lack something, unidentifiable at first. Now I see the depletion more clearly. Lack of inspiration and investment in the stories. Before this terrible malady, I loved my stories like children; conceived in my mind, birthed onto a keyboard and the pages of notebooks - now scattered and dusty throughout my room. I didn't merely create the characters. I would spend entire nights thinking as the person, feeling their emotions, dreaming their dreams. I understood deeply, every character I placed on paper. They were as real to me as you or I. The fact that they lacked physicality seemed of very little importance when they became so dear to me - like a pen pal you've never met; you have the words they give to you and an image in your mind, and that is enough. I miss my characters.
I miss having words flow out of me. I miss insomnia brought on by an overactive imagination. Now the lack of sleep is caused by my perplexed mind. It is not as if I have lost the will to write. I still know all those characters from what feels like decades ago. Why then, is it so hard for me to produce something legitimate? I feel like I'm separated from an old friend who is just out of reach and sight; too far to grasp in my arms once again. Oh! How I realize now that I relied so heavily on those stories and people! I'm lost and quite alone without them. I feel abandoned, but I imagine they might feel the same. I created their world and set them on a path; now - for years in some cases - they have been standing on an unfinished road, looking of into the black, absent beyond, and wondering when they might be able to return from their frozen time. It pains me so greatly that I cannot seem to resolve these stories. I haven't the slightest idea what to do with myself now. I lose my appetite to think of how I have fallen short as a self-proclaimed writer. I feel that I should perhaps even stop calling myself a writer altogether, but I just can't seem to do it. That has been what and who I am for so long, I don't know what else to be. If not a writer, I'm just a person. Unremarkable and in want of purpose. I cannot separate myself from this title because it isn't just a title to me. Its like a soul breathing life into me, even in my current, pathetic state. It gives me hope.
With that hope, I will keep writing until I find my voice once again. I have faith that my strength as a writer will return and I will once again be worthy of the title I cling so tightly to. This blog is my journey - one I hope not to leave staring into the abyss.
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