Hiatus

Even the pen felt heavy.

The ink was like tar, pulling the point back.

Slowing it’s flight across the page.

Just write.

Writer’s write.

Right?

You can’t keep telling people that you’re a writer if you are not putting the words down. Something. Anything. Just write. Prompt after prompt. Week after week. As some point it has to be easy again. Right? Effortless, like when you were slapped across the face by a different plotline every day. Back when you could spit out dozens of pages – every day. Back when there was no judgement in the words until it was time to edit them. Line them up, make them shine, and give them the TLC that they deserved before handing them off to your readers.

Cafes.

Pubs.

Busses.

Parks.

Bed.

Anywhere was the right place to write. The world would pause as breath by breath the story would appear from the tip of the pen like the rolling of waves. Natural. Every detail vivid. Every sentence like the confident sketch of a painting. The confident bones of a story ready for the deep, bold color of each future brush stroke.

Fuck! The magic of it.

The something out of nothing.

The storytelling.

The telling of the stories! My God…

Talking to a community of writer’s across a cup of coffee, or a pint, and fantasizing about the who, the what, the when, where and why. How to pull our stories from nothing. From hearsay. From strokes of inspiration. Moments. Dreams. People. Streets. And there, there it was. Clear as day. The story. Ink was made for this. And it would flow across the page like birds across the sky. Telling their own journey. The dips and climbs of an adventure waiting to be shared.

But.

But –

Fuck, it has been a minute.

And those birds, have been grounded.

Finding comfort on the ground. A little safer. A little more secure of their hatchlings to peek out and see the world. The blades of grass are trees. The rocks are mountains. Puddles, an ocean.

The pen.

Well, the pen…

It feels heavy.

Even heavier remembering the freedom of a flight across the pages. The stories and adventure. You knew it would be tough to return, but this…

this is…

well.

This is

writing.