The Writer

The room she sat in, was a dull blue one which looked even more bleak with the overcast sky outside covered in a canopy of grey. The storm clouds spread its tentacles across the horizon, till as far as the eye could see—hanging above the city like the Sword of Damocles, ready to burst any minute.

A sense of foreboding crept upon her. A little unease fluttered within. She picked up her notebook and opened the blank page with the book mark, ready to get back to her writing. Her story was stalled. Embracing the imperfection and messiness of the writing process didn’t come easily to her.

She knew only too well that a creative block could be draining, so giving herself some leeway, was probably the one thing she needed to do right now. On the whiteboard, the scribble spoke loud and clear—”Do not be too hard on yourself, if you’re feeling stuck.”

It was funny to be a witness to her own feeble attempts to piece together what was going to be the highlight of her story. Her journey from a girl battling depression, anxiety and everything-else-that-goes-with-it into finally recovering and then, coming into her own as a writer—a journey from the black hole of constant self-doubt, nagging insecurity and misery and then, re-discovering light, i.e., the zest for life, all over again.

It was the story that she owned and the one story that she wanted to share with the world. But, she was unsure of how and where to make the start. The words eluded her every time.

While the storm began to brew quietly outside, she paused yet again—weighed down by her attempts to meet a deadline or reach the assigned word count. A thought crossed her mind—

Could she perhaps use this time to daydream a bit and jot down ideas?

All she needed was to get into the ‘flow’ of things.

She knew that’s how the words would fall in place on her screen, letter by letter, word by word, forming a perfectly structured story.

And then, as she arose, alighting from her chair, raising her hand to wave an imaginary wand and unleash the magic—the storm began to blow, sweeping over rooftops, swirling and rising through the ground, tossing everything into the air. As if by co-incidence, she began to find the words that she had been looking for, as they slowly began to surface—her fingers tapping on the beats of a rhythmic dance on the keyboard, forming the perfect words that she had been wanting to say for so long. Her story was being born. It was like giving birth.

She wrote, as if possessed, with nothing but the story in her head.

Nothing else existed for her. Nothing mattered. It was just she and her words. Somewhere, in the background, a glass pane cracked under the pressure from the wind. But, the girl, who had always been scared of storms, feared nothing as she kept writing. Unfazed. Undisturbed.

She had finally found her words. Or perhaps, the words had finally found her.

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Written as part of our #SoulfulSunday free writing exercise, along with my friend Vinitha and Shilpa.