Publicerat
Kategori: Novell

At the tip of a pen


A woman sat down at her desk, looking out through her window. She had all the equipment she thought she needed – her favourite kind of pens, with dark green ink, a lovely empty notebook with an illustration of a withered large oak on the cover, a steaming cup of strong milky tea. The view was as inspiring as one could ask, to the point of being a cliché - sunlight streaming down on the meadows ahead, a soft breeze rustling the trees, horses grazing in the distance. The scene was set. All she had to do now was start writing. Her first novel. Or maybe a short story to warm up, find her own language, her style. She sat, gazing out, waiting for the words to come. She waited. Opened her mind to the stream of consciousness or whatever and tried to conjure up a sentence to get her story started. But no words came. Not a single thing sprung to mind. Her mind was blank, like the page in front of her. She started to lose patience after about fifteen minutes or so, and began thinking about all the books she had read in her life. How hard could it be? Then she reprimanded herself, she could not be so critical, so hard on herself. She was new at this. Maybe a more structured approach would suit her better? Perhaps inspiration wasn’t her way after all. Perhaps if she tried to focus on something specific, like the main character for instance? Who did she want to write about? What kind of book did she want to write anyway? A contemporary piece, she decided immediately, a historical novel would require a lot of research and she just wanted to start writing right away. Or did it? Writing your own book means you get to set the rules. Noone is going to check the facts. Well not as long as you write fiction anyway. The thought made her mind boggle a little, so much space for thought was a little bit intimidating to her. So maybe not necessarily a contemporary story. Great. Did she want the main character to be a man or a woman? Hard to put herself inside a man’s head, probably, but how to avoid being too autobiographical if she chose to write about a woman? So, a man. Or a woman. Or both? It could be a two-sided story, one chapter through a man’s view, the next through a woman’s and so forth. Maybe a bit too complicated for a virgin author, though, she thought sardonically. A setting then? Countryside or an urban story? In what country, on what continent? Ocean, desert, forest, plains? She was beginning to work up her frustration again, she was getting annoyed with herself over her own lack of decisiveness, talent, stamina, persistence, imagination. For crying out loud, she wasn’t even able to decide whether she wanted it to be a love story, a horror story, a criminal puzzle, a tale of a journey, or a family chronicle, a – what? – a witty story, a grave story, a story of happiness, grief, revenge, struggles, personal development, a rise-and-fall type of story, introvert, extrovert. She had no idea. After just half an hour she was almost ready to give up. She would never be a writer. Her idea of authorship seemed more and more to be a romantic, naïve one. She realised that she had been drawn to the task simply because she had always admired authors. There was something mysterious about an author, the hidden depths, the constantly active and endlessly creative mind. This is what she admired, and envied. To be able to build entire lives, persons, worlds within one’s own mind. It was an attempt to reinvent herself, and to become a more interesting person. But that was the dilemma. Was it possible to be an uninteresting person and still be able to write fiction? And if not, as she was beginning to fear, how could she make herself a more intersting person? As far as she could remember she hadn’t had an original thought since high school. Nothing worth putting down on paper. She had tried to take up diary writing a few times, but there was never anything to write about. Just the mindless got up, went to school or to work, went home, had dinner, watched tv and went to bed. The only exception had been when she was travelling. Well, to be honest, only the first of her longer journeys had resulted in a diary. The others had just produced a number of more or less empty notebooks. God, she was sick of herself. She had to do something about her dull self. If she couldn’t write, well then she had better go out and get a life, so she would get something to write about. She flung the pen away, pushed the chair back and stood up and walked out. She went out in the hall, pulled her boots on and slammed the door shut behind her. The house lay quiet and the pen had settled under the corner of a rug.

Skriven av: Isobel

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