Prerequisite

It's been a while.

I told myself I was going to crank out a ton of posts this month, but, as you can see, that fell through. Things have been so busy lately. I feel like this month has flown by, leaving my good intentions floating to the ground in a storm of dust and hopelessness. Okay, maybe not that last part. That was a little dramatic. Regardless, I haven't written anything in what feels like forever, and I'm just not happy about that. What I'm less happy about is my lack of inspiration. 

I have been working on a post about "good intentions" that, no matter how much revision it undergoes, doesn't seem like it will ever be finished (ironic). For the past few weeks, I'd log into my blog and, just before clicking edit, I'd see it sitting there, the word draft next to the title. It's been mocking me for weeks, and I've decided the best thing to do in a case like this is leave it alone. Sometimes with writing, you have to let things sit. You write other things in the hopes that, when you come back, the old writing will take shape and become something better than you anticipated. So, this is me writing other things. Except I'm not sure what I should write. 

That's where the lack of inspiration I mentioned comes in. What does a writer do when they don't know what to write? I'm sure there are a number of exercises one could do to elicit ideas. In my playwriting class last semester, those exercises were called etudes. They always seemed to work, but, to be honest, I don't feel like doing a string of exercises. I want my inspiration to come from something I see or think or feel. I realize I'm probably being a lazy writer, but I'm saving the etudes as a last resort.

In hopes of sparking something, I took the Stephen King approach and decided to read. He said, "If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that." I agree with him, for the most part. Reading the works of others helps inspire and shape every writer. I read Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine, the story of Caitlin, a young girl with Asperger syndrome who tries to find closure after the death of her older brother. It was an insightful and beautiful story. The next book I picked up was Flight by Sherman Alexie, my favorite of the two. I don't think I can summarize it justly, but thematically the book covered a lot of ground; it dealt with violence, hate, stereotypes, trust, etc. Both were good reads, and I recommend them. However, while this approach typically does it for me, after reading the two books, I've got nothing. 

So, what does a writer do when they don't know what to write? I think they write anyway. And it ends up looking like this: an uninspired rant about nothing in particular. And, while it isn't interesting or groundbreaking, it is writing. If you aren't putting words on a page, you can't expect them to turn into anything good, even if they start out looking really badly, e.g. this post. 

I apologize for the mediocrity that is this post, but hopefully it will become the prerequisite for something worth your while.