Still in the Game!

She came. She wrote. She conquered.

Meanwhile, I was looking out of the window, waiting for the Muse to strike. As always, M was being moody, and I refused to start without her blessing. She didn’t come. While I waited, she came. She wrote. She conquered.

I watched her in awe — and in envy.

She nudged me out from my chair. She took over my blank pages. She was quick. She needed no muse. She knew all the right words. She wrote perfect sentences. She wrote without a pause.

Paranoia’s tentacles gripped me tightly. M still didn’t strike. A calm voice said, “The storyteller is dead. Inter yourself.”

I was beginning to wallow in self-pity, and she kept writing. She wrote thousands of words every second. She was the writer I had often dreamed of becoming. She was living my dream.

After hours of waiting, M finally took pity on me. She hit me with her magic rod. I wrote my first word of the day. I deleted it. I wrote a sentence and deleted that as well. I was deleting words and sentences, and she had already written a book.

The voice again said, “The storyteller is dead. Inter yourself.”

I was beginning to believe that and was looking for an exit door when M struck me with a real rod. “Write, stupid,” her voice echoed.

“Ouch!” It hurt. It hurt for real. I took a deep breath and cracked my knuckles. I began to play a game: putting one word after another. I was not quick. I was far, far from perfection. But I was writing.

She came. She wrote. She conquered. But I was still in the game, and I was writing.

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