Writing is FUN!

A couple of recent conversations about the hardships of writing reminded me that I had this languishing on my hard drive. Written during my "Why the hell do I put myself through this?" phase (also known as "my entire career.") So, after complaining about editing yesterday I'm now going to stick the boot into writing:

Hack.

That’s what he felt like, his attempts at creating literary masterpieces resulting in laughable drivel.  The talent he used to be so sure he possessed had deserted him, leaving him to peck forlornly at the keyboard, pathetic one-fingered jabs that failed to produce a single memorable metaphor, a single worthwhile phrase.

Hack.

That’s what the critics had called him when reviewing his first and only book.  “Dull and uninspired,” they said.  “Hackneyed,” they said; his work so banal that they couldn’t even be bothered to skewer it with wickedly inventive barbs, instead sprinkling it with clichés of their own.

Hack.

The worst of it was that he believed them.  His imagination had failed him, proving inadequate to the task he had set it.  His flights of fancy were in fact mired in the mundane, weighed down by a dull, overwhelming ordinariness.  Yet still his brain was hardwired for the telling of tales, seeing stories in every tiny detail of day-to-day life.  But cruelly he lacked the talent to communicate these wonders to his readers.  So he lived his curse, stories trapped inside his head, begging for release yet dying as soon as they reached the page.

Hack.

There had to be some way to regain his creative fire, to let his muse flow once more, rich imaginings that would beguile the world with their splendour.  He just hadn’t put enough effort into his previous work.  He hadn’t fully committed himself to the literary process, hadn’t put enough of himself into the stories.  But that would change.

Hack.

Putting down the knife he watched his blood gush over the manuscript.