I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have an idea for a story and then translate this to the page. I remember the painstaking effort it takes to formulate the right words to characterise the story itself, the rush of excitement when it starts to come together and the exhilaration when a draft is done. But even though I can recall these things I don’t feel capable of feeling them anew.
Perhaps I don’t have the right idea yet, or any ideas at all…Perhaps I’m not really listening to my inner muse, or maybe she’s taken a holiday without me! What I do know is that currently the urge to write is minimal and as long as it feels like a chore then I’m unlikely to enjoy it as I should. I don’t want to push myself, yet I also don’t want to lose the writing muscle I’ve built up over the last few years. My self-imposed writing everyday challenge is helping, as it’s encouraging me to commit to writing some words each day, though I know my heart lies with fiction.
I don’t want to rely on memories to remind me what it’s like to write, nor do I want to force myself into it and build up a resentment. What I feel I need is an irresistibly alluring idea, one that will challenge me to get a pen back in my hand, ink onto the page and a story out of my mind and into the world.
So, maybe the focus needs to be less on the writing and more on the creation of ideas…?