In the bog of technical writing my creative muse wants to languish and die. She’s like a petulant youth sulking in the middle of the room with dramatic sighs and the abrupt declaration of being bored. Research has become the vegetables she is loath to eat, and not even the promise of dessert can induce her cooperation. If left too long unattended ennui begins to morph into something akin to depression.
This is the silent battle that wages within.
There are things to do–family to care for and work to complete. Most of the time I am able to keep life in perspective, to be here in this moment and do what must be done.
But it comes at a price.
The price is the slow decay of a sense of purpose and satisfaction I can only achieve through creative writing. It is the rebel within that cannot abide by limitations and confinement of thought. It is the part of me that wants to explore the shadows of my thoughts, to go deeper into the rabbit hole of curiosity, to go beyond physical reality to a world of pure imagination.
Outwardly I become despondent, snappish, and generally very bad company. I don’t want to talk about how my day has gone. I don’t want to have to think about what to make for dinner. I don’t want to clean one more dish or push the vacuum across the carpet to maintain the transitory cleanliness that is life with family and pets.
It is a kind of crazy that is difficult to communicate to others because it isn’t something they can offer sympathy for or a solution to. It isn’t something that an hour at a coffee shop or wandering the mall kid free can help. It isn’t that I feel unappreciated or unloved. It isn’t that I don’t love my family or that I’m not grateful for the life I have.
I need to write.
I need to write like I need to breathe.
I need to write about the shadows of my thoughts.
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