It is officially 10 P.M and after much delay, I let the brightness of my laptop screen inculcate some motivation in me. As I scroll down the document, I feel a sense of pride when I read the words: Chapter 46. Smiling to myself, I open two more tabs. One blasts heavy metal into my ears nearly rendering me incapable of hearing and the other displays the best of what Pinterest has to offer. It shows me breathtaking paint that covers canvases and molten lava flows that are beauty incarnate. I lose myself in the character charts and daydreams of fame. After nearly twenty minutes, I rush into the kitchen and return with a steaming cup of tea, toying with the thread of the sachet that hangs out of the cup.
To combat my writer’s block, I read seemingly endless articles on age-old mythology and writing prompts. They do encourage me, but what really begins that gut-wrenching urge to write is a post that tells me the author of the article is sailing in the same boat as me. They tell me it is normal, that all writers suffer from burnout and that I am no exception. It irks me and finally I switch back to the tab that presents to me a blank page. The cursor blinks at me tauntingly and once again, I am lost. I think of the plot and wonder how to further it. My characters enter my mind – people I have created, people who I spent hours constructing. I think of what I have planned for them – the sorrow, the joy, the friendships. And as I am busy wondering about their future, they manifest in front of me. Dressed in leather and armed with steel, they stare at me expectantly. They are all here – the snarky one, the smart one and the violent one. I wonder how the latter would threaten me with gruesome ideas that I most likely put in their head. They tell me that I owe it to them, that after all, they have suffered during the forty-five chapters, they deserve happiness.
And it is the fear of their story going untold that moves my fingers. They fly over the keyboard for hours without a break, never tiring, as though they were fueled with the very magic I am writing about. The words gush out of me like they were there all along. They just needed a catalyst, a push. Finally, in the dead of the night, I type The End. And perhaps it is my imagination, but even the violent one is wearing a proud grin.
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