Stagnation

A particular kind of optimism comes with opening a blank document when I try to work on something I am writing. Every time, some small, delusional part of my brain seems to believe this time will be different. So I open the document, stare at it, and anthropomorphize it until I believe it's staring back at me. I type three words. I delete two of them. I decide I need coffee.

By the time I get back to my desk, I have reorganized the kitchen, cleaned out my fridge, and googled something superfluous. The document remains open; the cursor flashes menacingly.

This has been more or less the state of my creative life lately. Which is particularly offensive because I am, allegedly, a writer.

Summer is ending, and apparently so is my will to create. I love the PNW. Truly. I love the rain, the fog, and the forests. I love those gray mornings when the clouds sit so low over the water you feel like you live in a cloud. This is my natural habitat.

Unfortunately, my brain has a slightly different opinion about the part where the sun starts disappearing. Every year, the end of summer sneaks up on me like it hasn't happened every single year since I moved here.

One moment, it's still light outside at 9:30 PM, and I am convinced I have unlimited time to accomplish everything I have ever wanted. And then, what seems like the very next day, I walk outside at 7:45, and the sun is already packing its belongings and telling me it is going to go get milk and cigarettes.

Excuse me? Where the hell are you going? We had an arrangement here!

There is something melancholy about the end of summer that I have never quite been able to shake. Maybe it is leftover childhood programming, the sense that summer ending means freedom ending. Maybe it is watching the days visibly shorten. Maybe it is knowing that soon I will be driving to work in the dark, and driving home in the dark, occasionally wondering whether the sun was something I hallucinated for the duration of the month of July.

For whatever reason, my creativity seems to notice this change. My brain starts powering down unnecessary systems; my energy, motivation, and serotonin production are apparently available by subscription only. My ability to spend four hours obsessively typing out the universes that exist in my brain in agonizing detail is suddenly non-operational.

Also, I am in the middle of changing jobs.

Apparently, the transition from summer into fall wasn't enough upheaval; I also decided this would be an excellent time to upend my career yet again. There is nothing like not only leaving your job, but exiting the industry and entering a whole new one to put you face to face with the realization of how much of your life runs on autopilot. Suddenly, everything is new; everything requires thought.

All of the new information and habits I am being forced to create and adapt to is apparently processed by the same part of my brain responsible for making fictional people kiss, murder each other, travel through space, make catastrophically poor decisions, or stare meaningfully across rooms. By the time I get home, my brain clocks. I sit down to write and politely request a sentence. My brain responds with elevator music.

The worst part is, I still need and want to write. That is the especially irritating thing about writer's block. I haven't stopped loving to write. I haven't run out of stories. If anything, there are too many. They are all still rattling around in there. Characters pace impatiently, scenes exist in fragments, and dialogue appears at wildly inconvenient times. Entire plot developments materialize while I am driving, showering, working, or otherwise incapable of writing them down.

Then when I finally sit in front of my computer, nothing. Apparently my creativity is a cat. It desperately wants my attention until I am actually available to give it attention. Then it wants nothing to do with me. This would be easier if I simply didn't feel creative. Instead, I feel creative in theory but can't make the transition to practical application.